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CONCERNING 

WOMEN 


CONCERNING 

WOMEN 


by 

SUZANNE  LA  FOLLETTE 


ALBERT  & CHARLES  BONI 
NEW  YORK  1926 


Copyright,  1926,  by  Albert  & Charles  Boni,  Inc. 


Manufactured  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Ellen  Winsor 

and 

Rebecca  Winsor  Evans 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I The  Beginnings  of  Emancipation  ...  1 

II  Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  ...  19 

III  Institutional  Marriage  and  Its  Economic 

Aspects 56 

IV  Woman  and  Marriage  . . * 93 

^ The  Economic  Position  of  Women  . . . 157 

VI  What  is  to  be  Done 207 


VII  Signs  of  Promise 


. 270 


CONCERNING 

WOMEN 


Let  there  be,  then,  no  coercion  established  in  society,  and 
the  common  law  of  gravity  prevailing,  the  sexes  will  fall  into 
their  proper  places. 


Mary  Wollstonecraft. 


CHAPTER  I 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  EMANCIPATION 

It  will  be  foolish  to  assume  that  women  are  free, 
until  books  about  them  shall  have  ceased  to  have 
more  than  an  antiquarian  interest.  All  such  books, 
including  this  one,  imply  by  their  existence  that 
women  may  be  regarded  as  a class  in  society;  that 
they  have  in  common  certain  characteristics,  con- 
ditions or  disabilities  which,  predominating  over 
their  individual  variations,  warrant  grouping  them 
on  the  basis  of  sex.  No  such  assumption  about 
men  would  be  thinkable.  Certain  masculine  quali- 
ties, so-called,  may  be  singled  out  by  amateur  psy- 
chologists and  opposed  to  certain  feminine  quali- 
ties, so-called;  but  from  books  about  the  sphere  of 
man,  the  rights  of  man,  the  intelligence  of  man, 
the  psychology  of  man,  the  soul  of  man,  our  shelves 
are  mercifully  free.  Such  books  may  one  day  ap- 
pear, but  when  they  do  it  will  mean  that  society  has 
passed  from  its  present  state  through  a state  of  sex- 


2 Concerning  Women 

equality  and  into  a state  of  female  domination.  In 
that  day,  in  place  of  the  edifying  spectacle  of  men 
proclaiming  that  woman  is  useful  only  as  a bearer 
of  children,  society  may  behold  the  equally  edifying 
spectacle  of  women  proclaiming  that  man  is  useful 
only  as  a begetter  of  children;  since  it  seems  to  be 
characteristic  of  the  dominant  sex  to  regard  the 
other  sex  chiefly  as  a source  of  pleasure  and  as  a 
means  of  reproduction.  It  seems  also  to  be  char- 
acteristic of  the  dominant  sex — I judge  from  the 
world’s  experience  during  the  domination  of  men — 
to  regard  itself  as  humanity,  and  the  other  sex  as 
a class  of  somewhat  lower  beings  created  by  Provi- 
dence for  its  convenience  and  enjoyment;  just  as 
it  is  characteristic  of  a dominant  class,  such  as  an 
aristocracy,  to  regard  the  lower  classes  as  being 
created  solely  for  the  purpose  of  supporting  its 
power  and  doing  its  will.  When  once  a social  or- 
der is  well  established,  no  matter  what  injustice  it 
involves,  those  who  occupy  a position  of  advantage 
are  not  long  in  coming  to  believe  that  it  is  the  only 
possible  and  reasonable  order,  and  imposing  their  be- 
lief, by  force  if  necessary,  on  those  whom  circum- 
stances have  placed  in  their  power.  There  is  noth- 
ing more  innately  human  than  the  tendency  to 


The  Beginnings  of  Emancipation  3 

transmute  what  has  become  customary  into  what 
has  been  divinely  ordained. 

Thus  among  the  Hebrews  the  subordination  of 
woman  gave  rise  to  the  notion  that  she  was  fash- 
ioned out  of  man’s  rib.  She  was  the  result  of  a 
divine  afterthought,  the  sexus  sequior  of  the  ancients 
and  more  recently  of  Schopenhauer,  “inferior  in 
every  respect  to  the  first.”  Since  the  Divine  Artist 
had  had  good  practice  in  creating  Adam,  it  might 
logically  have  been  expected  that  His  second  sex 
would  turn  out  even  better  than  His  first;  we  must 
therefore  lay  His  failure  to  the  somewhat  sketchy 
nature  of  the  materials  He  chose  to  work  with. 
This  Hebrew  myth  of  the  creation  of  woman  has 
had  considerable  effect  on  her  status  in  the  era 
known  as  Christian.  Being  “only  a supernumerary 
bone,”  as  Bossuet  reminded  her,  she  could  naturally 
not  aspire  to  a position  of  equality  with  man.  She 
must  remember  her  origin,  and  be  humble  and  sub- 
servient as  befitted  a mere  rib. 

She  was  humble  and  subservient,  as  a matter  of 
fact,  for  an  incredibly  long  time;  so  long  that  there 
exists  a general  suspicion  even  at  the  present  day 
that  there  is  something  in  her  nature  which  makes 
her  want  to  be  subject  to  man  and  to  live  as  it  were 


4 Concerning  Women 

at  second  hand.  This  thought  would  be  even  more 
alarming  than  it  is,  perhaps,  if  it  were  not  true  that 
men  themselves  have  stood  for  a good  deal  of  subjec- 
tion during  the  world’s  known  history.  Chattel 
slavery  and  serfdom  were  abolished  from  the  civil- 
ized world  only  at  about  the  time  that  the  subjection 
of  women  began  to  be  modified;  and  men  still  en- 
dure, not  only  with  resignation  but  with  positive 
cheerfulness,  a high  degree  of  industrial  and  politi- 
cal slavery.  The  man  who  is  entirely  dependent 
for  his  livelihood  upon  the  will  of  an  employer  is  an 
industrial  slave,  and  the  man  who  may  be  drafted 
into  an  army  and  made  to  fight  and  perhaps  die  for 
a cause  in  which  he  can  have  no  possible  interest  is 
the  slave  of  the  State;  yet  one  can  not  see  that  this 
proves  Aristotle’s  assumption  that  there  are  free  na- 
tures and  slave  natures,  any  more  than  the  subjection 
of  women  proves  that  they  want  to  be  subjected. 
What  the  slavery  of  men,  as  of  women,  implies  is 
the  existence  of  an  economic  and  social  order  that  is 
inimical  to  their  interests  as  human  beings;  and  it 
implies  nothing  more  than  this. 

Nor  does  the  opposition  to  the  emancipation  of 
women  which  still  finds  expression  in  this  country 
and  in  Europe,  prove  anything  more  than  that  super- 


The  Beginnings  of  Emancipation  5 

stitious  addiction  to  custom  of  which  I have  already 
spoken.  Those  anxious  critics  who  protest  that 
women  have  got  more  freedom  than  is  good  for  So- 
ciety make  the  mistake  of  supposing  that  Society  can 
exist  only  if  its  organization  remains  unchanged. 
The  same  conservatism  has  opposed  all  the  revo- 
lutionary adaptations  which  have  fitted  the  social 
order  to  the  breakdown  of  old  forms  and  their  re- 
placement by  new  ones.  Yet  when  the  need  for 
such  adaptations  ceases,  the  growth  of  the  social 
organism  ceases  with  it,  and  we  have  such  a spec- 
tacle of  arrested  development  as  the  civilization  of 
India  presents.  Society,  in  so  far  as  it  has  become 
organic,  is  governed  by  the  same  rules  as  any  other 
organism:  the  condition  of  its  health  is  growth,  and 
growth  is  change. 

^Ceytainly  the  present  tendency  of  woman  to  as- 
sume a position  of  equality  with  man  involves,  and 
will  continue  even  more  to  involve,  profound  psychic 
and  material  readjustments.  But  to  assume  that 
such  readjustments  will  injure  or  destroy  Society 
is  to  adopt  toward  Society  an  attitude  of  philosoph- 
ical realism,  to  attribute  to  it  a personality,  to  sup- 
pose that  it  is  equally  capable  of  destruction  with  the 
individual,  and  that  it  may  in  some  mystical  way 


6 Concerning  Women 

derive  benefit  from  the  sacrifice  of  the  individual’s 
best  interests.  But  what  is  Society  save  an  aggre- 
gation of  individuals,  half  male,  half  female? 
Where  you  have  a handful  of  people  forming  a com- 
munity, there  you  have  Society;  and  if  the  individ- 
uals are  enlightened  and  humane  it  may  be  called 
a civilized  Society,  if  they  are  ignorant  and  brutal 
it  will  be  uncivilized.  To  assume  that  its  “interests” 
may  be  promoted  by  the  enslavement  of  one-half  its 
members,  is  unreasonable.  One  may  be  permitted 
the  doubtful  assumption  that  this  enslavement  pro- 
motes the  welfare  of  the  other  half  of  Society,  but  it 
is  obvious  that  it  can  not  promote  the  welfare  of  the 
whole,  unless  we  assume  that  slavery  is  beneficial  to 
the  slave  (the  classic  assumption,  indeed,  where  the 
slaves  have  been  women).  When  we  consider  the 
political  organization  known  as  the  State,  we  have  a 
different  matter.  The  State  always  represents  the 
organized  interest  of  a dominant  class ; therefore  the 
subjection  of  other  classes  may  be  said  to  benefit  the 
State,  and  their  emancipation  may  be  opposed  as  a 
danger  to  the  State. 

It  is  evident  from  the  very  nature  of  the  State  1 

1 For  a most  enlightening  treatment  of  the  genesis  and  nature  of  the 
State,  I refer  my  readers  to  Franz  Oppenheimer’s  short  treatise  on 
the  subject  (“The  State,”  B.  W.  Huebsch,  Inc.,  New  York).  It  is 


The  Beginnings  of  Emancipation  7 

that  its  interests  are  opposed  to  those  of  Society ; and 
while  the  complete  emancipation  of  women,  as  I 
shall  show  later,  would  undoubtedly  imply  the  de- 
struction of  the  State,  since  it  must  accrue  from  the 
emancipation  of  other  subject  classes,  their  emanci- 
pation, far  from  destroying  Society,  must  be  of  ines- 
timable benefit  to  it.  '(Those  critics,  and  there  are 
many,  who  argue  that  women  must  submit  to  re- 
strictions upon  their  freedom  for  the  good  of  the 
State,  as  well  as  those  advocates  of  woman’s  rights 
who  argue  that  women  must  be  emancipated  for  the 
good  of  the  State,  simply  fail  to  make  this  vital 
distinction  between  the  State  and  Society;  and 
their  failure  to  do  so  is  one  of  the  potent  reasons 
why  the  nonsense  that  has  been  written  about 
women  is  limited  only  by  the  literature  of  the  sub- 
ject. 

Feminist  and  anti-feminist  arguments  from  this 

sufficient  here  to  define  it  as  an  organization  primarily  designed  to 
perpetuate  the  division  of  Society  into  an  owning  and  exploiting  class 
and  a landless,  exploited  class.  In  its  genesis  it  is  an  organization 
of  a conquering  group,  by  means  of  which  that  group  maintains  its 
economic  exploitation  of  those  subjugated.  In  its  later  stages,  when 
the  conquering  class  has  become  merely  anyowning  class,  the  State  is 
an  organization  controlled  by  this  class  through  its  control  of  wealth, 
for  the  purpose  of  protecting  ownership  against  the  propertyless 
classes  and  facilitating  their  exploitation  by  the  owning  class.  The 
State  is  thus  the  natural  enemy  of  all  its  citizens  except  those  of  the 
owning  class. 


8 Concerning  Women 

standpoint  centre  in  the  function  of  childbearing^ 
therefore  it  should  be  noted  that  the  emphasis  which 
is  placed  on  this  function  by  the  interest  of  the  State 
is  quite  different  from  the  emphasis  that  would  be 
placed  upon  it  by  the  interest  of  Society;  for  the 
interest  of  the  State  is  numerical,  while  the  interest 
of  Society  is  qualitative.  The  State  requires  as 
many  subjects  as  possible,  both  as  labour-motors 
and  as  fighters.  The  interest  of  Society,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  the  interest  of  civilization:  if  a com- 
munity is  to  be  wholesome  and  intelligent,  it  is 
necessary  not  that  the  individuals  who  compose  it 
shall  be  as  numerous  as  possible,  but  that  they  shall 
be  as  wholesome  and  intelligent  as  possible.  fTn 
general,  the  interest  of  the  State  is  promoted  by  the 
number  of  its  subjects;  that  of  Society  by  the  quality 
of  its  members?^ 

The  interest  of  the  State  in  this  respect  has  been 
most  concisely  expressed  by  Nietzsche.  “Man,” 
said  he,  “shall  be  trained  for  war,  and  woman  for 
the  re-creation  of  the  warrior:  all  else  is  folly ”J 
and  if  one  accept  his  premises  he  is  exactly  right. 
But  there  have  been  many  writers  on  women  who 
have  not  accepted  his  premises — not  at  least  with- 
out qualification — and  who  have  yet  failed  to  ob- 


The  Beginnings  of  Emancipation  9 

serve  the  antithesis  between  the  interest  which  the 
State  has,  and  the  interest  which  Society  has,  in 
the  question  of  population.  Hence,  mingled  with 
the  voices  of  those  critics  who  have  demanded  the 
subjection  of  woman  for  the  sake  of  children,  have 
been  the  voices  of  other  critics  demanding  her  em- 
ancipation for  the  sake  of  children:  and  both  these 
schools  of  critics  have  overlooked  her  claim  to  free- 
dom on  her  own  behalf,  (it  is  for  the  sake  of  human- 
ity, and  not  for  the  sake  of  children,  that  women 
ought  to  have  equal  status  with  mdD  That  chil- 
dren will  gain  enormously  by  the  change  is  true ; but 
this  is  beside  the  issue,  which  is  justice. 

The  argument  that  woman  must  be  free  for  the 
sake  of  the  race,  is  an  argument  of  expediency;  as 
nine-tenths  of  the  arguments  against  her  legal  sub- 
jection have  been,  and  indeed  had  to  be.  Unfor- 
tunately, humanity  is  likely  to  turn  a deaf  ear  to  the 
claims  of  justice,  especially  when  they  conflict  with 
established  abuses,  unless  these  claims  are  backed 
by  the  claims  of  expediency  plus  a good  measure  of 
necessity.  Adventitious  circumstances  have  made 
the  social  recognition  of  woman’s  claims  a necessity, 
and  their  political  recognition  a matter  of  expe- 
diency. Otherwise  she  would  have  to  wait  much 


io  Concerning  Women 

longer  for  the  establishment  of  her  rights  as  man’s 
equal  than  now  appears  likely,  fin  the  Western 
world  her  battle  is  very  largely  won;  full  equality, 
social,  industrial  and  legal,  seems  to  be  only  a matter 
of  time  and  tactics.  This  she  owes  to  the  great 
political  and  industrial  revolutions  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

The  conscious  movement  towards  freedom  for 
women  may  be  said  to  have  originated  in  the  great 
emancipatory  movement  which  found  expression  in 
the  American  and  French  revolutions^  The  revolu- 
tionists did  not  succeed  in  establishing  human 
freedom ; they  poured  the  new  wine  of  belief  in  equal 
rights  for  all  men  into  the  old  bottle  of  privilege  for 
some;  and  it  soured.  But  they  did  succeed  in  creat- 
ing political  forms  which  admitted,  in  theory  at  least, 
the  principle  of  equality.  Their  chief  contribution 
to  progress  was  that  they  dramatically  and  power- 
fully impressed  the  idea  of  liberty  upon  the  minds 
of  men,  and  thus  altered  the  whole  course  of  human 
thought.  Mary  Wollstonecraft’s  book,  “A  Vindica- 
tion of  the  Rights  of  Women,”  revolutionary  though 
it  seemed  in  its  day,  was  a perfectly  natural  and 
logical  application  of  this  idea  of  liberty  to  the  situa- 
tion of  her  sex.  This  remarkable  book  may  be  said 


The  Beginnings  of  Emancipation  n 

to  have  marked  the  beginning  of  the  conscious  move- 
ment towards  the  emancipation  of  women. 

^he  unconscious  movement  was  the  outgrowth  of 
the  revolution  in  industry,  brought  about  by  the  in- 
troduction of  the  machine.  (Women  had  always 
been  industrial  workers,  but  their  work,  after  the 
break-up  of  the  gilds,  was  for  the  most  part  carried 
on  at  home.  When  the  factory  supplanted  the 
family  as  the  producing  unit  in  society,  the  environ- 
ment of  women  was  altered ; and  the  change  affected 
not  only  those  women  who  followed  industry  to  the 
factories,  but  also  those  who  remained  housewives, 
for  where  these  had  before  been  required  to  per- 
form, or  at  least  to  superintend,  a large  amount  of 
productive  work,  they  now  found  their  function,  as 
the  family  became  a consuming  unit,  reduced  to  the 
superintendence  of  expenditures  and  the  operation 
of  the  household  machinery — a labour  which  was 
increasingly  lightened  by  the  progress  of  invention. 
With  domestic  conditions  so  changed,  what  was 
more  natural  than  that  the  daughters  should  go  into 
the  factory;  or,  if  the  family  were  well-to-do,  into 
the  schools,  which  were  forced  reluctantly  to  open 
their  doors  to  women?  And  what  was  more  nat- 
ural than  that  women,  as  their  minds  were  developed 


12  Concerning  Women 

through  education,  should  perceive  the  injustice  and 
humiliation  of  their  position,  and  organize  to  de- 
fend their  right  to  recognition  as  human  beings? 
“If  we  dared,”  says  Stendhal,  “we  would  give  girls 
the  education  of  a slave.  . . . Arm  a man  and  then 
continue  to  oppress  him,  and  you  will  see  that  he 
can  be  so  perverse  as  to  turn  his  arms  against  you 
as  soon  as  he  can.” 

Women  in  the  factories  and  shops;  women  in  the 
schools — from  this  it  was  only  a moment  to  their  in- 
vasion of  the  professions,  and  not  a very  long  time 
until  they  would  be  invading  every  field  that  had 
been  held  the  special  province  of  men.  This  is  the 
great  unconscious  and  unorganized  woman’s  move- 
ment which  has  aroused  such  fear  and  resentment 
among  people  who  saw  it  without  understanding  it. 

The  organized  movement  may  be  regarded  simply 
as  an  attempt  to  get  this  changing  relation  of  women 
to  their  environment  translated  into  the  kind  of  law 
that  the  eighteenth  century  had  taught  the  world  to 
regard  as  just:  law  based  on  the  theory  of  equal 
rights  for  all  human  beings.  The  opposition  that 
the  movement  encountered  offers  ample  testimony 
to  the  fact  that  “acceptance  in  principle”  is  more 
than  a mere  subterfuge  of  diplomats  and  politicians. 


The  Beginnings  of  Emancipation  13 

The  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  resolutely 
clung  to  the  theory  of  equality,  and  as  resolutely 
opposed  its  logical  application.  This  is  not  sur- 
prising; most  people,  no  doubt,  when  they  espouse 
human  rights,  make  their  own  mental  reservations 
about  the  proper  application  of  the  word  “human.” 
Women  had  hardly  been  regarded  as  human  in  me- 
diaeval Europe;  they  were  considered  something  a 
little  more  from  the  chivalrous  point  of  view,  and 
something  a little  less  from  the  more  common,  work- 
aday standpoint.  The  shadow  of  this  old  super- 
stition still  clouded  the  minds  of  men:  therefore  it 
is  hardly  surprising  that  the  egalitarians  of  the 
French  Revolution  excluded  women  from  equal 
political  and  legal  rights  with  men;  and  that  the 
young  American  republic  which  had  adopted  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  continued  to  sanction 
the  slavery  of  negroes  and  the  subjection  of  women. 
How  firmly  rooted  this  superstition  was,  may  be 
seen  in  the  following  irresistibly  funny  excerpt  from 
the  writings  of  that  great  American  advocate  of 
freedom,  the  author  of  the  Declaration,  Thomas 
Jefferson. 


Were  our  State  a pure  democracy,  in  which  all  its 


14  Concerning  Women 

inhabitants  should  meet  together  to  transact  all  their 
business,  there  would  yet  be  excluded  from  their  delib- 
erations (1)  infants  until  arrived  at  years  of  discre- 
tion. (2)  Women,  who,  to  prevent  depravation  of 
morals  and  ambiguity  of  issue,  could  not  mix  promis- 
cuously in  the  public  meetings  of  men.  (3)  Slaves. 


Thus  does  superstition  cast  out  logic.  Nor  does 
superstition  die  easily.  The  masculine  assumption, 
usually  quite  unconscious,  that  women  are  unfit  for 
freedom,  bids  fair  to  persevere  as  stubbornly  as  the 
feminine  assumption  that  marriage  offers  a legiti- 
mate and  established  mode  of  extortion.1 

If  the  conscious  feminists  bore  the  brunt  of  the 
resentment  aroused  by  woman’s  changing  relation 
to  the  world  about  her,  it  was  because  their  oppo- 
nents did  them  the  honour  of  believing  that  they  were 
responsible  for  the  change.  It  was  a strangely 

1 1 shall  take  up  this  question  later ; but  I might  remark  that  this 
point  is  well  illustrated  by  a suit  recently  brought  in  the  State  of  New 
York.  The  former  wife  of  a wealthy  man,  whom  he  had  divorced 
twenty  years  before,  brought  action  against  him  for  separation  and 
maintenance.  When  asked  why  she  had  waited  twenty  years  before 
questioning  the  validity  of  the  divorce  and  her  husband’s  subsequent 
remarriage,  her  lawyer  stated  that  she  had  never  been  in  need  of 
money  before,  but  that  she  had  been  swindled  out  of  the  money  set- 
tled upon  her  by  her  husband  at  the  time  of  the  divorce.  The  italics 
are  mine;  and  no  comment,  I think,  is  needed. 


The  Beginnings  of  Emancipation  15 

incurious  attitude  that  permitted  such  an  assump- 
tion to  be  held ; for  it  really  takes  a very  feeble  ex- 
ercise of  intelligence  to  perceive  that  a handful  of 
feminist  agitators  could  hardly  coax  millions  of 
women  into  industry — under  conditions  often  ex- 
tremely disadvantageous — into  business,  the  schools 
and  the  professions.  I believe  the  cause  of  this  in- 
curiousness lay  in  the  very  fear  aroused  by  these 
changes  and  the  social  revaluations  which  they  im- 
plied; fear  for  a relation  between  the  sexes  which, 
having  been  established  for  so  long,  seemed  the 
only  reasonable,  or  indeed  possible,  relation.  Filled 
as  they  were  with  this  fear  of  change,  which  is  one 
of  the  strongest  human  emotions,  the  opponents  of 
woman’s  emancipation  were  incapable  of  objec- 
tivity. Their  intellectual  curiosity  was  paralyzed. 
This  accounts,  perhaps,  for  the  utterances  of  two 
such  eminent  philosophers  as  Schopenhauer  and 
Nietzsche.  They  came  to  the  subject  strongly  preju- 
diced: the  idea  of  any  claims  on  behalf  of  women 
filled  them  with  disgust;  therefore,  as  one  may  take 
a certain  malicious  pleasure  in  observing,  their 
thought  on  the  subject  was  hampered  by  that  “weak- 
ness of  the  reasoning  faculty”  which  Schopenhauer 
found  characteristic  of  women.  If,  when  discuss- 


16  Concerning  Women 

ing  woman,  they  had  not  been  as  “childish,  frivolous 
and  short-sighted”  as  they  believed  women  to  be, 
they  might,  along  with  lesser  minds,  have  arrived  at 
some  understanding  of  a subject  which  has  always 
been  thought  much  more  mysterious  and  baffling 
than  it  really  is.  The  woman  of  their  day  may 
have  been  the  poor  creature  they  pronounced  her  to 
be,  but  if  she  was,  the  obvious  question  was,  Why? 
Was  she  a poor  creature  by  nature,  or  because  of 
centuries  of  adaptation  to  a certain  kind  of  life? 
This  question  neither  Schopenhauer  nor  Nietzsche 
took  the  trouble  to  ask.  They  weighed  her  as  she 
was — or  as  they  thought  she  was — and  arrived  at 
the  sage  conclusion  that  the  West  had  much  to 
learn  from  the  Orient  concerning  the  proper  atti- 
tude toward  her. 

It  would  be  a very  desirable  thing  [says  Schopen- 
hauer] if  this  Number  Two  of  the  human  race  were  in 
Europe  also  relegated  to  their  natural  place  [which  he 
conceives  to  be  the  harem  of  a polygamous  household] 
and  an  end  put  to  this  lady-nuisance,  which  not  only 
moves  all  Asia  to  laughter  but  would  have  been  ridi- 
culed by  Greece  and  Rome  as  well. 

Nietzsche,  in  the  same  vein,  remarks  that 


The  Beginnings  of  Emancipation  17 

a man  who  has  depth  of  spirit  as  well  as  of  desires,  and 
has  also  the  depth  of  benevolence  which  is  capable  of 
severity  and  harshness,  and  easily  confounded  with 
them,  can  only  think  of  woman  as  Orientals  do:  he 
must  conceive  of  her  as  a possession,  as  confinable 
property,  as  a being  predestined  for  service  and  accom- 
plishing her  mission  therein. 

Such  a view  of  the  “weaker  sex”  of  course  proves 
nothing  about  women,  but  it  proves  a good  deal 
about  the  effect  that  their  subjection  has  had  on  the 
minds  of  men.  It  is  a significant  fact  that  both 
Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche  were  Germans,  and 
that  in  their  day  the  status  of  women  was  lower  in 
Germany  than  in  any  other  important  country  of 
the  Western  World,  except  Italy. 

(The  corruption  of  both  sexes  that  results  from  the 
subjection  of  one,  has  been  too  convincingly  dealt 
with  by  other  writers  to  need  discussion  hereT  What 
I should  like  to  emphasize  is  the  futility  of  ap- 
proaching the  so-called  “woman  question”  with  any 
sort  of  pre-conceived  notion  concerning  the  nature 
of  woman,  or  her  sphere,  or  her  duty  to  the  State  or 
to  Society;  and  above  all,  of  approaching  it  with 
the  idea — the  idea  that  obsesses  all  reformers — that 
she  is  a more  or  less  passive  creature  about  whom 


18  Concerning  Women 

something  either  ought  or  ought  not  to  be  done,  or, 
for  that  matter,  about  whom  something  can  be  done. 
What  she  should  and  can  do  for  herself  is  a differ- 
ent matter;  and  to  that  question  I intend  to  address 
myself  before  I leave  this  subject. 


i 


CHAPTER  II 


woman’s  status,  past  and  present 

I 

Woman  tends  to  assume  a position  of  equality 
with  man  only  where  the  idea  of  property  in  human 
beings  has  not  yet  arisen  or  where  it  has  disap- 
peared: that  is  to  say,  only  in  extremely  primitive 
or  highly  civilized  communities,  iln  all  the  inter- 
mediate stages  of  civilization,  woman  is  in  some 
degree  regarded  as  a purchasable  commodity^  Her 
status  varies  widely  among  different  peoples:  there 
are  primitive  tribes  where  she  holds  a position  of 
comparative  independence;  and  there  are  civilized 
peoples,  on  the  other  hand,  among  whom  she  is  vir- 
tually a slave.  But  always  there  is  present  the  idea 
of  subordination  to  a male  owner,  husband,  father 
or  brother,  even  though  it  may  survive  only  in  cere- 
monial observances,  e.  in  the  ritual  practice  of 
“giving  in  marriage,”  or  in  certain  legal  disabilities, 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  law  entitling  a man  to  his 
wife’s  services  without  remuneration. 

The  subjection  of  women,  then,  bears  a close  in- 


19 


20  Concerning  Women 

trinsic  resemblance  to  both  chattel  slavery  and  in- 
dustrial slavery,  in  that  its  basis  is  economic. j As 
soon  as  civilization  advances  to  the  point  of  a rudi- 
mentary organization  of  agriculture  and  industry, 
woman  becomes  valuable  as  a labour-motor  and 
a potential  producer  of  children  who  will  become 
labour-motors  and  fighters.  Her  economic  value, 
or  chattel-value,  then,  is  a commodity  for  which  her 
family  may  demand  payment;  and  hence,  appar- 
ently, arises  the  custom  of  exacting  a bride-price 
from  the  man  who  wishes  to  marry  her.  Once  es- 
tablished, this  custom  of  barter  in  marriage  strikes 
root  so  deeply  that  the  woman  who  has  brought  no 
bride-price  is  often  regarded  with  scorn  and  her 
children  considered  illegitimate;  and  the  idea  of 
male  ownership  that  accompanies  it  becomes  so 
pronounced  that  it  persists  even  where,  owing  to  an 
excess  of  women  coupled  with  monogamy,  the  cus- 
tom has  been  practically  reversed,  and  the  father 
buys  a husband  for  his  daughter.  An  instance  of 
this  survival  is  the  system  of  dowry  which  exists  in 
France.  Unless  it  is  otherwise  stipulated  by  pre- 
nuptial agreement,  the  dowry  is  at  the  disposal  of 
the  husband,  and  the  wife,  under  the  law,  owes  him 
obedience. 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  21 

When  the  bargain  has  been  made  and  the  bride 
delivered  to  her  husband’s  family,  her  services  gen- 
erally become,  save  in  tribes  where  residence  is 
matrilocal,  the  property  of  her  purchasers,  and  she 
is  subject  to  her  husband,  or,  where  the  patriarchal 
system  is  highly  developed,  to  the  head  of  his  tribe. 
It  must  be  remarked,  however,  that  although  this  is 
the  usual  arrangement,  it  is  not  invariable.  Among 
some  peoples,  the  husband’s  rights  are  purely  sexual, 
the  services  of  the  wife,  and  often  even  her  children, 
belonging  to  her  own  tribe;  and  among  others,  the 
husband  must  pay  for  his  bride  in  services  which 
render  him  for  a long  period  the  virtual  slave  of 
his  wife’s  relatives.  The  point  to  be  remarked  in 
all  this  is  that  any  conception  of  woman  as  an  in- 
dividual entity,  as  in  any  sense  belonging  to  her- 
self, and  not  to  her  own  relatives  or  to  her  husband 
and  his  family,  seems  to  be  practically  non-existent 
among  primitive  peoples,  as  it  was  until  recently 
among  civilized  peoples.  But  it  must  be  remarked, 
too,  that  in  this  respect  her  position  is  only  less 
desirable  than  that  of  the  man;  for  in  primitive 
society  the  group  so  dominates  the  individual  that 
in  almost  every  phase  of  life  he  is  hedged  about  with 
restrictions  and  taboos  which  leave  little  room  for 


22  Concerning  Women 

the  play  of  personality  and  the  pursuit  of  individual 
desires.  All  social  advancement  has  been  in  the 
direction  of  the  individual’s  escape  from  this  group- 
tyranny. 

So  important  is  the  part  that  the  labour  of  women 
plays  in  the  primitive  world,  that  the  wife  or  wives 
are  often  the  sole  support  of  husband  and  family; 
and  a man’s  wealth  and  social  prestige  may  actually 
depend  upon  the  number  of  his  wives.  “Manual 
labour  among  savages,”  says  Westermarck,  “is  un- 
dertaken chiefly  by  the  women;  and  as  there  are  no 
day-labourers  or  persons  who  will  work  for  hire,  it 
becomes  necessary  for  any  one  who  requires  many 
servants  to  have  many  wives.”  { There  are  no  day- 
labourers  or  persons  who  will  work  for  hire. 
Women,  then,  are  the  first  victims  of  that  deep- 
rooted  and  instinctive  preference  for  living  by  the 
labour  of  other  people,  which  has  played  so  moment 
tous  and  sinister  a role  in  the  world’s  history. 
Among  tribes  whose  mode  of  life  has  made  them  ex- 
ploitable by  stronger  and  more  highly  organized 
hordes — as,  for  example,  an  agricultural  people 
which  is  conquered  by  a more  mobile  and  disciplined 
tribe  of  herders — there,  among  the  expropriated 
class,  are  day-labourers  and  people  who  will  work 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  23 

for  hire,  for  these  have  no  choice  or  alternative;  but 
among  peoples  where  militant  exploitation  is  im- 
possible— as  among  the  hunting-tribes — no  man  can 
be  forced  to  work  for  another  man,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  there  is  no  way  of  compelling  him  to 
share  the  product  of  his  labour.  But  even  here  we 
see  the  economic  phenomenon  of  the  labour  of  women 
being  exploited  as  the  labour  of  man  is  exploited 
after  conquest  and  the  foundation  of  the  exploiting 
State;  and  this  is  the  case  chiefly  because  certain 
natural  disadvantages  render  them  easily  exploit- 
able, as  I shall  show  later. 

It  may  be  remarked  in  this  connexion,  that  sex- 
ual division  of  labour  appears  to  be  quite  arbitrary 
among  primitive  peoples;  and  that  it  often  bears 
little  resemblance  to  the  division  which  has  existed 
for  so  long  among  Europeans  that  it  has  apologists 
who  regard  it  as  being  divinely  ordained.1  This 
suggests  at  least  that  the  European  division  is  ar- 
bitrary too.  Indeed,  it  has  undergone  considerable 
change.  Brewing,  for  example,  was  regarded  as 
woman’s  work  in  mediaeval  England.  It  is  even 
supposed  that  the  monasteries,  which  excluded 


1 Among  the  Chinese,  for  example,  the  woman  never  goes  near  the 
kitchen. 


24  Concerning  Women 

women  from  other  service  within  their  walls,  em- 
ployed women  brewers.  In  general,  it  appears  a 
fair  conclusion  that  the  occupations  which  are  con- 
sidered least  desirable  are  given  over  to  the  sub- 
ordinate sex.  Thus  men,  according  to  the  Vaer- 
tings,  during  the  period  when  women  dominated  in 
Egypt,  were  forced  to  care  for  children  and  perform 
the  drudgery  of  the  household.  Where  military  en- 
terprise plays  a part  in  tribal  life,  the  division  of 
labour  appears  to  give  validity  to  the  contention  of 
Spencer  and  others  that  man  is  militant  and  woman 
industrial ; yet  the  exclusion  of  women  from  military 
activity  is  no  doubt  primarily  due  quite  as  much  to 
the  taboos  against  them  as  to  their  own  lack  of  war- 
like spirit.  Indeed,  there  are  tribes  where  women 
take  active  part  in  flighting ; and  there  are  folk-tales 
in  plenty  which  tell  of  their  prowess — as,  for  ex- 
ample, in  the  epic  lore  of  Greece  and  Russia.  But 
because  of  a primitive  awe  of  the  function  of  men- 
struation, women  are  often  considered  unclean,  and 
excluded  on  this  account  from  many  tribal  activities, 
particularly  from  religious  rites.  Among  such 
peoples,  it  would  not  be  surprising  to  find  that  the 
same  superstition  excluded  women  from  participa- 
tion in  any  enterprise  in  which  the  tribal  gods  are 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  25 

so  active  and  their  aid  so  important  as  in  war.  In 
certain  tribes  of  South  Africa  there  is,  according  to 
Dr.  Elsie  Clews  Parsons,  a direct  connexion  between 
militancy  and  a taboo  against  woman.  man 
sleeping  with  his  wife  must  be  careful  not  to  touch 
her  with  his  right  hand.  Otherwise  his  strength  as 
a warrior  goes  from  him  and  he  will  surely  be 
killed.” ") 

Whatever  be  the  basis  of  sexual  division  of  la- 
bour among  different  tribes,  and  whatever  minor 
differences  there  be  in  the  relative  position  of  the 
sexes,  one  thing  is  certain,  and  it  is  all  we  are  at 
present  concerned  with,  namely:  in  what  Dr.  Lowie 
has  called  “that  planless  hodge-podge,  that  thing  of 
shreds  and  patches  called  civilization,”  woman  al- 
most invariably  occupies  a more  or  less  inferior 
position.  Dr.  Lowie  himself  is  careful  to  warn  his 
readers  against  the  popular  assumption  that  the 
position  of  primitive  woman  is  always  abject,  and 
that  the  status  of  woman  offers  a sure  index  of  cul- 
tural advancement;  nevertheless  he  says  that  “It 
is  true  that  in  by  far  the  majority  of  both  primitive 
and  more  complex  cultures  woman  enjoys,  if  we  ap- 
ply our  most  advanced  ethical  standards,  a less  de- 
sirable position  than  man.” 


26  Concerning  Women 

The  obvious  question  is,  Why?  [ The  answer  is 
equally  obvious,  and  has  been  so  often  stated  and 
discussed  that  I need  do  no  more  than  mention  it 
here.  /Woman,  however  nearly  her  physical  strength 
in  the  natural  state  may  approximate  that  of  man,  is 
under  a peculiar  disadvantage  in  being  the  child- 
bearing sex.  During  pregnancy,  at  least  in  its  later 
stages,  and  during  childbirth,  she  is  powerless  to  de- 
fend herself  against  aggression.  She  is  also  at  con- 
siderable disadvantage  during  the  early  infancy  of 
her  child.  Man  in  the  savage  state,  having  none  of 
that  consideration  which  proceeds  in  a rough  ratio 
with  cultural  development,  takes  advantage  of  her 
periodic  weakness  and  her  consequent  need  of  pro- 
tection, to  force  her  into  a subordinate  position. 
Superstition,  masculine  jealousy  and  desire  for 
domination,  have  of  course  been  joined  with  the 
economic  motive  in  bringing  about  this  subjection 
to  the  male;  but  these  motives  could  not  have  oper- 
ated if  her  subjection  had  not  been  physically  pos- 
sible. If  woman  had  had  the  natural  advantage 
over  man,  she  would  have  used  it  to  subject  him, 
precisely  as  he  used  his  advantage  to  subject  her; 
for  the  human  being  in  the  ruder  stages  exploits 
other  human  beings,  when  possible,  as  a matter  of 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  27 

course,  without  any  of  those  pretexts  and  indirec- 
tions that  characterize  communities  where  the  sense 
of  human  rights  has  become  sufficiently  general  to 
gain  the  doubtful  tribute  of  disingenuousness.  It 
is  among  these  more  enlightened  communities  that  . 
the  subjection  of  woman — or  of  any  class — becomes 
reprehensible:  a society  that  exploits  human  beings 
through  ignorant  brutality  is  not  open  to  the  same 
criticism  as  a society  which  continues  to  exploit 
them  when  clearly  aware  that  in  doing  so  it  is  vi- 
olating a natural  right. 

11 

So  much  for  the  cause  of  woman’s  subjection  and 
exploitation.  It  has  had  powerful  abetment  in 
superstitious  nations  concerning  sex,  such  as  the 
primitive  horror  of  menstruation.  “Even  educated 
Indians,”  says  Dr.  Lowie,  “have  been  known  to  re- 
main under  the  sway  of  this  sentiment,  and  its  in- 
fluence in  moulding  savage  conceptions  of  the 
female  sex  as  a whole  should  not  be  underrated. 
The  monthly  seclusion  of  women  has  been  accepted 
as  a proof  of  their  degradation  in  primitive  com- 
munities, but  it  is  far  more  likely  that  the  causal 
sequence  is  to  be  reversed  and  that  her  exclusion 


28  Concerning  Women 

from  certain  spheres  of  activity  and  consequently 
lesser  freedom  is  the  consequence  of  the  awe  inspired 
by  the  phenomena  of  periodicity.” 

It  is  evident  that  this  superstition  has  operated 
powerfully  to  segregate  women  into  a special  class, 
excluded  from  full  and  equal  participation  in  the 
life  of  the  community.  It  is  also  reasonable  to 
assume  that  it  has  stimulated  the  growth  of  many 
other  superstitions  that  have  hedged  them  about 
from  time  immemorial.  It  is  probably,  for  exam- 
ple, closely  connected  with  the  Chinese  association 
of  evil  with  the  female  principle  of  the  Universe, 
and  with  the  Hebrew  notion  that  sorrow  entered 
the  world  through  the  sin  of  a woman.  No  doubt 
it  may  be  connected  with  the  mediaeval  tend- 
ency to  regard  woman  as  a mysterious  and  super- 
natural being,  either  angelic  or  demoniac.  The 
conception  of  sibyls  and  witches  is  derived  from  it; 
and  likewise  the  notion  which  shows  an  interesting 
persistence  even  now,  that  a good  woman  is  some- 
what nearer  the  angels  than  a good  man,  and  a bad 
woman  much  more  satanic  than  a bad  man.1  Once 

1 According  to  news-reports  on  the  day  that  this  is  written,  Judge 
McIntyre  of  New  York,  sentencing  a young  woman  in  a criminal 
case,  said:  “When  a woman  is  bad  she  is  vicious  and  worse  than  a 
man,  many,  many  times  over.” 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  29 

the  idea  is  established  that  woman  is  a being  extra- 
human, minds  prepossessed  by  this  superstition 
may  see  her  as  either  subhuman  or  superhuman;  or 
these  two  notions  may  coexist,  as  in  Christian  so- 
ciety. 

The  notion  that  there  is  always  a savour  of  sin 
in  the  indulgence  of  sexual  appetite,  even  when  ex- 
ercised under  due  and  formal  regulation,  has  also 
had  a profound  effect  on  the  status  of  women. 
This  notion  is  to  be  found  in  both  primitive  and 
civilized  communities;  and  since  to  each  sex  the 
other  sex  represents  the  means  of  gratifying  sexual 
desire,  the  other  sex  naturally  comes,  where  such  a 
notion  obtains,  to  represent  temptation  and  sin. 
But  where  one  sex  is  dominant  and  tends  to  regard 
itself  as  the  sum  of  humanity,  the  other  sex  is  forced 
to  bear  alone  the  burden  of  responsibility  for  the 
evil  that  sex  represents;  and  it  is  therefore  hedged 
about  by  the  dominant  sex  with  all  sorts  of  restric- 
tions intended  to  reduce  its  opportunities  to  be 
tempting,  and  thus  to  minimize  its  harmfulness. 

It  seems  a fair  assumption  that  the  association 
of  sin  with  sex-desire  may  have  arisen  from  the 
antagonism  between  individual  inclination  and  the 
domination  of  the  group.  Among  peoples  where 


30  Concerning  Women 

the  clan  or  the  family  is  the  final  category,  mar- 
riage is  far  from  being  exclusively  a matter  of  in- 
dividual interest  and  preference ; indeed  the  individ- 
uals concerned  may  have  little  or  nothing  to  say 
about  it.  The  marriage  is  arranged  by  their  elders, 
and  the  principals  may  not  even  see  one  another 
before  their  wedding  day.  Marriage  under  these 
conditions  is  a contract  between  families,  an  ar- 
rangement for  founding  a new  economic  unit  and 
for  perpetuating  the  tribe,  as  royal  marriages  are 
purely  dynastic  arrangements  in  behalf  of  a politi- 
cal order.  Sexual  preference  can  have  little  place 
in  such  a scheme;  nothing,  indeed,  is  more  inimical 
to  it.  Love  becomes  an  interloping  passion,  threat- 
ening the  purely  utilitarian  basis  upon  which  sex 
has  been  placed;  and  as  such  it  must  be  discount- 
enanced, and  young  men  and  women  carefully  seg- 
regated in  order  that  this  inconvenient  sentiment 
may  have  no  chance  to  spring  up  unauthorized  be- 
tween them. 

In  the  Christian  world  this  association  of  sin 
with  the  sexual  appetite  has  prevailed  since  the  days 
of  St.  Paul.1  Sexual  desire  has  been  regarded  as  a 

1 It  finds  grotesque  expression  now  and  then.  I remember  seeing  in 
a San  Francisco  newspaper  a few  years  ago  this  headline:  “Accused 
of  having  immoral  relations  with  a woman  other  than  his  wife.” 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  31 

base  instinct,  and  its  gratification  under  any  cir- 
cumstances as  a kind  of  moral  concession;  there- 
fore woman,  as  the  instrument  of  sexual  satisfaction 
in  the  dominant  male,  must  be  repressed  and  regu- 
lated accordingly,  and  to  this  end  she  was  always 
to  be  under  obedience  to  some  man,  either  her  hus- 
band or  a male  relative.  “Nothing  disgraceful,” 
says  Clement  of  Alexandria,  “is  proper  for  man, 
who  is  endowed  with  reason;  much  less  for  woman, 
to  whom  it  brings  shame  even  to  reflect  of  what 
nature  she  is.”  Repression  has  combined  with  the 
proprietary  idea  to  make  chastity  a woman’s  princi- 
pal if  not  her  only  virtue,  and  unchastity  a sin  to 
be  punished  with  a severity  that,  in  another  view, 
seems  irrational  and  disproportionate,  by  perman- 
ent social  ostracism,  for  example,  as  in  most  modern 
communities,  or,  as  in  Egypt  and  mediaeval  Eu- 
rope, by  violent  death.  An  extraordinary  incon- 
sistency appears  in  the  fact  that  since  Christian 
thought  has  chiefly  connected  morality  with  chastity, 
woman  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  repository  of 
morality,  and  as  such  to  be  considered  on  a higher 
moral  plane  than  man.  But  it  was  really  her  econ- 
omic and  social  inferiority  that  made  her  the  reposi- 
tory of  morality.  She  must  embody  the  ideal  of 


32  Concerning  Women 

sexual  restraint  that  her  husband  often  found  it  in- 
convenient or  onerous  to  attain  for  himself;  and 
any  unfaithfulness  to  this  ideal  on  her  part  inflicted 
upon  him  a mysterious  injury  called  “dishonour.” 
He  might  indulge  his  own  polygamous  leanings 
with  impunity,  but  his  failure  to  make  effective  his 
sexual  monopoly  of  his  wife  made  him  liable  to 
contempt  and  ridicule.  So  strongly  does  this  no- 
tion persist  that  one  may  find  anthropologists,  usu- 
ally the  most  objective  among  our  men  of  science, 
gauging  the  morality  of  a primitive  people  by  the 
chastity  of  its  women. 

Of  course  the  effect  of  the  attempt  to  make  the 
chastity  of  women  a matter  of  morality  and  law,  has 
been  the  precise  opposite  of  the  one  aimed  at.  So- 
ciety can  never  be  made  virtuous  through  arbitrary 
regulation;  it  can  only  be  made  unhappy  and  un- 
amiable.  The  attempt  to  suppress  all  unauthorized 
expression  of  the  sex-impulse  in  women  tended  to 
make  them  not  only  miserable  and  abject,  but  hypo- 
critical and  deceitful;  and  it  tended  also  to  make 
men  predatory.  This  was  its  inevitable  result  in 
a society  where  women  paid  an  exorbitant  penalty 
for  unchastity  and  men  paid  no  penalty  at  all;  a 
result  which  has  made  the  relations  between  the 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  33 

sexes  in  the  Christian  world  about  as  bad  as  any 
that  could  be  imagined.  Theoretically,  to  be  sure, 
Christianity  exacted  of  men  the  same  degree  of 
chastity  as  of  women;  practically  it  did  no  such 
thing,  as  may  be  amply  proved  even  now  by  a 
study  of  the  marriage  and  divorce  laws  of  Chris- 
tian nations,  not  excepting  our  own.1  The  sexual 
license  of  the  dominant  male  was  limited  only  by 
the  practicable  correspondence  between  his  own  de- 
sires and  his  opportunities;  and  thanks  to  that  con- 
venient being,  the  prostitute,  his  opportunities  were 
plentiful.  Hence  for  him,  women  were  divided 
into  two  classes:  the  chaste  and  respectable  from 
whom  he  chose  the  wife  who  kept  his  home,  bore  his 
children,  and  embodied  his  virtue;  and  those  out- 
casts from  society  who  promoted  the  chastity  of  the 
first  class  by  offering  themselves,  for  a price,  as 
sacrifices  to  illicit  sexual  desire.  Neither  class  was 
he  bound  to  respect;  for  the  only  thing  that  com- 
pels respect  is  independence,  and  in  neither  the  first 
nor  the  second  class  were  women  independent. 
From  the  man’s  point  of  view,  such  a social  ar- 

1 In  the  State  of  Maryland,  if  the  wife  be  found  to  have  been 
unchaste  before  marriage,  the  husband  is  entitled  to  a divorce;  but 
premarital  unchastity  on  the  part  of  the  husband  gives  the  wife  no 
corresponding  ground. 


34  Concerning  Women 

rangement  was  superficially  satisfactory.  It  pro- 
vided for  what  might  be  called  the  utilitarian  ends 
of  sex;  that  is  to  say,  the  man’s  name  was  perpetu- 
ated and  his  natural  appetites  gratified.  But  be- 
yond this  it  left  a good  deal  to  be  desired.  Its  worst 
effect  was  by  way  of  a complete  evaporation  of  the 
spiritual  quality  of  union  between  man  and  woman 
and  the  very  considerable  dehumanization  that  in 
consequence  set  in.  Both  the  wife  and  the  prosti- 
tute were  man’s  creatures  quoad  hoc,  to  be  used  for 
different  purposes  but  equally  to  be  used.  It  is 
hardly  to  be  wondered  at  that  man  came  to  regard 
women  as  “the  sex,”  and  through  his  own  manage- 
ment of  their  degradation  came  to  feel  and  to  ex- 
press toward  them  a degree  of  contempt  that  cast 
considerable  doubt  on  his  own  humanity.  It  is  in- 
variable that  the  person  who  is  able  to  regard  any 
class  of  human  beings  as  per  se  his  natural  in- 
feriors, will  by  so  doing  sacrifice  something  of  his 
own  spiritual  integrity.  In  his  relation  to  woman, 
man  occupied  a position  of  privilege  analogous  to 
that  occupied  by  the  aristocracy  in  the  State;  and 
he  paid  the  same  penalty  for  his  exercise  of  a 
usurped  and  irresponsible  power:  a coarsening  of 
his  spiritual  fibre.  One  of  the  oddest  of  the  many 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  35 

odd  superstitions  that  have  grown  out  of  male  domi- 
nation is  the  notion  that  men  suffer  less  spiritual 
harm  from  sexual  promiscuity  than  women;  and 
this  in  spite  of  the  biblical  injunction,  applied  ex- 
clusively to  their  sex:  “None  who  go  unto  her  re- 
turn again.”  This  superstition  is  accountable  for 
abundant  and  incurable  misery;  and  so  slow  is  it 
to  disappear  that  one  is  inclined  to  advocate  a move- 
ment for  the  emancipation  of  men,  a movement  toi 
free  them  from  the  prejudices  and  prepossessions 
concerning  women  that  are  inculcated  by  the  tradi- 
tional point  of  view. 

We  have  seen  that  the  Christian  philosophy  looked 
upon  woman  as  man’s  creature  and  his  chief  tempta- 
tion, and  that  Christian  society  took  good  care  to 
keep  her  in  that  position.  In  doing  so,  it  made  her 
the  enemy  of  man’s  better  self  in  a way  that  appar- 
ently was  not  foreseen  by  St.  Paul,  whose  concern 
with  the  temptations  of  the  flesh  seems  to  have  been  a 
matter  of  more  passionate  conviction  than  his  con- 
cern with  those  of  the  spirit.  Woman’s  subordinate 
position;  her  enforced  ignorance;  the  narrowness 
of  the  interests  that  were  allowed  her;  the  exag- 
gerated regard  for  the  opinion  of  other  people  that 
was  bound  to  be  developed  in  a creature  whose  whole 


36  Concerning  Women 

life  depended  on  her  reputation — these  conditions 
were  calculated  to  evolve  the  sort  of  being  which  is 
hardly  able  to  give  clear  recognition  either  to  her 
own  spiritual  interest  or  to  that  of  other  people. 
Such  a being  would  be  the  enemy  of  man’s  spiritual 
interest  primarily  through  sheer  inability  to  under- 
stand it.  Public  opinion  was  the  arbiter  of  her  own 
destiny;  how  could  she  be  expected  to  conceive  of 
any  other  or  higher  for  man?  Her  whole  life  must 
be  lived  for  appearances;  how  could  she  help  man 
to  live  for  actualities,  and  to  make  the  sacrifice  of 
appearances  that  such  an  ideal  might  entail?  The 
only  renunciation  of  the  world  that  figured  in  her 
life  was  that  which  led  to  the  convent;  of  that  re- 
nunciation which  involves  being  in  the  world  but 
not  of  it — that  steady  repudiation  of  its  standards 
which  clears  the  way  to  spiritual  freedom — of  such 
a renunciation  she  would  almost  certainly  be  unable 
even  to  dream.  The  inevitable  result  of  this  en- 
forced narrowness  was  well  stated  by  John  Stuart 
Mill  in  the  essay  which  remains  the  classic  of  femi- 
nist literature ; he  pointed  out  that  in  a world  where 
women  are  almost  exclusively  occupied  with  ma- 
terial interests,  where  their  standard  of  appraisal 
is  the  opinion  of  other  people,  their  ambition  will 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  37 

naturally  connect  itself  with  material  things,  with 
wealth  and  prestige,  no  matter  how  inimical  such 
an  ambition  may  be  to  the  spiritual  interests  of  the 
men  upon  whom  they  depend.  That  there  have 
been  distinguished  exceptions  to  this  rule  does 
credit  to  the  strength  of  character  which  has  enabled 
an  individual  now  and  then  to  attain  something  like 
spiritual  maturity  in  spite  of  a disabling  and  re- 
tarding environment/ 


hi 

The  effects  of  repression  and  seclusion  on  the 
character  of  woman  have  given  rise,  and  an  appear- 
ance of  reason,  to  a host  of  other  superstitions  about 
her  nature;  notions  which  have  been  expressed  in 
terms  by  many  writers  and  have  coloured  the 
thought  of  many  others.  To  offer  a petty  but  in- 
teresting example,  one  of  the  most  widely  prevalent 
and  most  easily  disproved  of  these  is  the  belief  that 
women  are  by  nature  more  given  to  self-decoration 
than  men.  Certainly  the  practice  in  civilized  so- 
ciety at  present  seems  to  bear  out  this  notion.  But 
when  we  turn  to  primitive  communities  we  find,  on 
the  contrary,  that  the  men  are  likely  to  be  vainer  of 


38  Concerning  Women 

finery  and  more  given  to  it  than  the  women.  The 
reason  is  simple:  decoration  of  the  person  arises 
from  the  desire  to  enhance  sex-attraction;  and  it  is 
most  industriously  practised  by  that  sex  among 
whose  members  there  is  the  keener  competition  for 
favour  with  members  of  the  opposite  sex.  In  Euro- 
pean civilization  marriage  has  been  practically  the 
only  economic  occupation  open  to  women;  but  mo- 
nogamous marriage,  accompanied  by  an  excess  of 
females  and  an  increasing  proportion  of  celibacy 
among  males,  has  made  it  impossible  for  every 
woman  to  get  a husband;  therefore  the  rivalry 
among  them  has  been  keen,  and  their  interest  in  self- 
decoration has  been  largely  professional.  “If  in 
countries  with  European  civilization,”  says  Wester- 
marck,  “women  nevertheless  are  more  particular 
about  their  appearance  and  more  addicted  to  self- 
decoration than  the  other  sex,  the  reason  for  it  may 
be  sought  for  in  the  greater  difficulty  they  have  in 
getting  married.  But  there  is  seldom  any  such  dif- 
ficulty in  the  savage  world.  Here  it  is,  on  the 
contrary,  the  man  who  runs  the  risk  of  being 
obliged  to  lead  a single  life.” 

M.  Vaerting,  on  this  subject,  takes  the  view  that 
“the  inclination  to  bright  and  ornamental  clothing 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  39 

is  dependent  not  upon  sex,  but  upon  the  power- 
relation  of  the  sexes.  The  subordinate  sex,  whether 
male  or  female,  seeks  ornament.”  But  it  would 
seem,  in  view  of  the  accepted  theory  that  self- 
decoration originates  in  the  desire  to  enhance  sex- 
attraction,  that  Westermarck’s  is  the  more  reason- 
able explanation;  moreover  it  covers  certain  cases 
in  primitive  life  where  the  women,  although  their 
position  is  abject,  nevertheless  go  plainly  clad  while 
the  men  are  given  to  elaborate  decoration  of  their 
persons. 

In  spite  of  all  the  evidence  which  anthropology 
arrays  against  it,  however,  the  notion  persists  that 
woman  is  by  nature  more  addicted  to  self-decoration 
than  man;  and  there  are  not  wanting  advocates  of 
her  subjection,  among  them  many  women,  who  main- 
tain that  it  shows  the  essential  immaturity  of  her 
mind! 

(The  notion  that  women  are  by  nature  mentally 
inferior  to  men,  is  primarily  due  to  the  fact  that 
their  enforced  ignorance  made  them  appear  inferior. 
This  is  one  of  the  strongest  superstitions  concerning 
women,  as  it  is  also  one  of  the  oldest.  It  has  been 
much  weakened  by  modern  experience,  but  it  has  by 
no  means  disappeared.  Indeed,  it  has  stood  in  the 


40  Concerning  Women 

way  of  dispassionate  scientific  study  of  the  relative 
mental  capacity  of  the  sexes.  Havelock  Ellis,  in 
his  “Man  and  Woman,”  says  that  “the  history  of 
opinion  regarding  cerebral  sexual  difference  forms 
a painful  page  in  scientific  annals.  It  is  full  of 
prejudices,  assumptions,  fallacies,  over-hasty  gen- 
eralizations. The  unscientific  have  a predilection 
for  this  subject;  and  men  of  science  seem  to  have 
lost  the  scientific  spirit  when  they  approached  the 
study  of  its  seat.  ...  It  is  only  of  recent  years  that 
a comparatively  calm  and  disinterested  study  of  the 
brain  has  become  in  any  degree  common;  and  even 
today  the  fairly  well  ascertained  facts  concerning 
sexual  differences  may  be  easily  summed  up.”  He 
then  proceeds  to  show  that  those  differences  are 
few.  It  might  be  remarked  here  that  such  actual 
differences  as  appear  are  differences  between  man 
and  woman  as  they  now  are,  and  can  not  be  taken 
as  final.  If  brain-mass,  for  example,  depends  to 
some  extent  on  physical  size  and  strength,  the  mass 
of  woman’s  brain  should  tend  to  increase  as  she 
abandons  her  unnatural  seclusion,  engages  in  ex- 
acting occupations  and  indulges  in  vigorous  physi- 
cal exercise.  Already  there  has  been  an  astonish- 
ing change  in  the  female  figure.  An  interesting 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  41 

indication  of  this  is  a recent  dispatch  from  Germany 
stating  that  according  to  the  shoe-manufacturers  of 
that  country  the  average  German  woman  of  today 
wears  a shoe  two  sizes  larger  than  the  woman  of  a 
century  ago.  If  woman’s  body  tends  thus  to  en- 
large with  proper  use,  so  in  all  likelihood  will  her 
brain. 

Even  Plato,  who  advocated  the  education  of 
woman,  held  that  while  her  capacities  did  not  differ 
in  kind  from  those  of  man,  they  differed  in  degree 
because  of  her  inferiority  in  physical  strength.  It 
was  a broad-minded  view;  for  the  most  part  women 
have  simply  been  held  to  be  by  nature  relatively 
weak-minded  and  therefore  relatively  ineducable. 
They  have  already  passed  one  general  test  of  educa- 
bility, by  entering  schools  on  the  same  footing  with 
men  and  showing  themselves  equally  able  to  achieve 
a high  scholastic  standing;  yet  the  Platonic  notion 
persists  that  they  are  physically  incapable  of  going 
as  far  as  men  can  go  in  intellectual  pursuits.  This 
question  can  probably  not  be  settled  a priori  to  any 
one’s  satisfaction.  It  must  be  conceded,  after  the 
fact,  however,  that  considering  the  short  time  that 
women  have  been  tolerated  in  the  schools  and  in  the 
practical  prosecution  of  intellectual  pursuits,  the 


42  Concerning  Women 

showing  they  have  made  has  really  been  quite  as 
good  as  might  reasonably  be  expected,  and  that  it 
certainly  has  not  been  such  as  to  warrant  any  arbi- 
trary fixing  of  limits  beyond  which  they  can  not  or 
shall  not  go.  Moreover,  the  physical  weakness 
which  is  supposed  to  disable  woman  intellectually 
may  be  itself  a result  of  her  adaptation  to  her  en- 
vironment. There  is  no  way  that  I know  of  to 
forecast  with  any  kind  of  accuracy  ^vjiat  a few  gen- 
erations of  freedom  will  accomplish  specifically  in 
the  way  of  spiritual  development.  Considering  that 
human  beings  are  “creatures  of  a large  discourse,” 
the  matter  is  probably  determinable  only  by  experi- 
ment— solvitur  ambulando. 

Nor  will  there  be  any  reason  to  agree  with  the 
numerous  adherents  of  the  idea  that  women  are 
naturally  incapable  of  great  creative  work  in  any 
field  until  they  shall  have  failed,  after  generations 
and  even  centuries  of  complete  freedom,  to  produce 
great  creative  work.  This  notion  represents  the  last 
stand  of  a priori  judgment  concerning  female  intelli- 
gence. It  is  based  on  the  theory,  at  present  much 
in  fashion,  that  men  are  more  variable  than  women, 
and  that  both  idiocy  and  genius  are  thus  much  more 
frequent  in  the  male  sex,  while  the  intelligence  of 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  43 

women7  tends  to  keep  to  the  safe  ground  of  medioc- 
rity. /,  The  implications  of  this  theory  manifestly 
are  that  genius  of  the  highest  order  can  not  be  ex- 
pected to  appear  in  a womann  Since  all  cats  are 
grey  in  the  dark,  according  to  the  proverb,  nothing 
worth  saying  can  be  said  against  this  theory  or  for 
it.  The  data  which  underly  it  are  simply  incom- 
petent and  immaterial  to  any  conclusion,  one  way 
or  the  other.  They  represent  only  a projection  of 
men  and  women  as  they  now  are,  and  therefore  can 
not  be  taken  as  a basis  for  speculation  concerning 
men  and  women  as  they  may  become.  To  say,  for 
instance,  that  because  there  has  never  been,  to  our 
knowledge,  any  woman,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  Sappho,  who  showed  the  highest  order  of  gen- 
ius  in  the  arts  it  is  probable  that  there  never  can  or 
wilkbe,  is  much  thejame  as  to jsay  that  because  there 
has  never  been  a woman  President  of^the  United 
Sfates~no  woman  ever  can  or  will  be  President.  Let 
Ttl)Ufreeiy  admitted  that  women  have  had  opportun- 
ities in  the  creative  field,  and  have  fallen  short  of  su- 
premacy. What  of  it?  One  must  yet  perceive  that 
the  woman  who  has  had  those  opportunities  has  been 
the  product  of  a civilization  constitutionally  inimi- 
cal to  her  use  of  them,  and  one  may  not  assume  that 


44  Concerning  Women 

she  has  entirely  escaped  the  effects  of  the  continuous 
repression  and  discouragement  exercised  upon  her 
by  her  social,  domestic  and  political  environment. 
When  the  power  and  purchase  of  this  influence  are 
fully  taken  into  account,  one  would  say  it  is  not  half 
so  remarkable  that  women  have  missed  supreme 
greatness  in  the  arts  as  that  they  have  been  able  to 
achieve  anything  at  all.  For  in  the  arts,  more  than 
anywhere  else,  spiritual  freedom  is  essential  to  great 
achievement;  and  spiritual  freedom  means  a great 
deal  more  than  the  mere  absence  of  formal  restraint 
upon  the  processes  of  writing  books  or  painting  pic- 
tures. It  is  this  important  distinction  that  writers 
like  Dr.  Ellis  and  Dr.  Hall,  for  example,  have  over- 
looked or  ignored.  They  have  simply  failed  to  take 
into  account  the  effect  of  a generally  debilitating  en- 
vironment on  the  activities  of  the  human  spirit. 

The  environment  of  women  has  long  been  such 
as  tends  to  make  them,  much  more  than  men,  the 
slaves  of  “was  uns  alle  bandigt,  das  Gemeine,”  and 
therefore  to  win  release  from  the  commonplace  was, 
and  still  is,  proportionately  harder  for  a woman  than 
for  a man.  The  prevailing  notion  that  a woman 
must  at  all  costs  cultivate  the  approval  of  the  world  $ 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  45 

lest  she  fail,  through  lack  of  it,  to  manoeuvre  her- 
self successfully  into  the  only  occupation  that  society 
showed  any  cordiality  about  opening  to  her — this 
put  a heavy  premium  on  dissimulation  and  artifice. 
Women  have  not  dared  freely  to  be  themselves,  even 
to  themselves.  It  was  the  effect  of  this  constraint 
that  Stendhal  noted  when  he  remarked  that  “the 
reason  why  women,  when  they  become  authors, 
rarely  attain  the  sublime,  ...  is  that  they  never 
dare  to  be  more  than  half  candid.” 

It  can  not  be  gainsaid  that  the  east  wTind  of  in- 
difference which  has  chilled  the  fire  of  many  a 
masculine  artist  who  found  himself  part  of  an  age 
indifferent  to  his  order  of  talent,  has  always  blown 
its  coldest  upon  the  woman  who  essayed  creative 
work.  The  woman  who  undertakes  to  achieve  ar- 
tistic or  intellectual  distinction  in  a world  dominated 
by  men,  finds  herself  opposed  by  many  disabling 
influences.  In  an  earlier  day  she  had  to  endure 
being  thought  unwomanly,  freakish,  or  wicked  be- 
cause she  dared  venture  outside  the  limited  sphere 
of  sexuality  that  had  been  assigned  to  her.  jNow 
her  presence  in  the  field  of  spiritual  endeavour  is 
taken  quietly;  but  she  is  constantly  meeting  with  the 


46  Concerning  Women 

tacit  assumption,  which  finds  expression  in  a thou- 
sand subtle  ways,  that  her  work  must  be  inferior  on 
account  of  her  sex.1^  Again,  the  idea  that  marriage 
and  reproduction  constitute  an  exclusive  calling  and 
are  really  the  natural  and  proper  calling  for  every 
woman,  still  has  general  currency;  and  the  very  fact 
that  a vast  majority  of  women  tacitly  acquiesce  in 
this  idea,  constitutes  a strong  pull  upon  the  indi- 
vidual towards  the  orthodox  and  expected.  Human 
beings  are  always  powerfully  drawn  to  be  like  their 
fellows;  to  be  different  requires  a somewhat  un- 
common independence  of  spirit  and  toughness  of 
fibre,  and  the  fewer  the  individuals  who  attempt 
it,  the  more  independence  and  tenacity  it  requires. 
“The  fewer  there  be  who  follow  the  way  to  heaven,” 
says  the  author  of  the  Imitation,  “the  harder  that 
way  is  to  find.” 

The  position  of  woman  in  creative  work  the  world 
over  is  analogous  to  that  of  the  man  in  America 
who  ventures  into  the  arts:  he  will  be  tolerated;  he 
may  even  be  respected;  but  he  will  not  find  in  his 

1 As  tiie  only  woman  member  of  an  editorial  staff  during  a period 
of  four  years,  I had  ample  opportunity  for  experience  of  this  atti- 
tude. It  was  openly  expressed  only  twice,  both  times,  oddly  enough, 
by  women ; but  so  universal  was  the  unconscious  assumption  of 
inferiority  that  I may  say  without  great  exaggeration  that  it  was 
only  among  my  colleagues  that  I did  not  meet  with  it. 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  47 

environment  the  interest  and  encouragement  that 
will  help  to  develop  his  talents  and  spur  him  to  his 
best  efforts.  He  may  get  sympathy  and  encourage- 
ment from  individuals;  but  his  environment  as  a 
whole  will  not  yield  what  Sylvia  Kopald  has  well 
termed  the  “tolerant  expectancy”  which  nourishes 
and  develops  genius. . In  American  civilization  the 
prevailing  ideal  for  men  is  business — material  suc- 
cess; and  our  people  retain,  as  Van  Wyck  Brooks 
has  pointed  out,  the  suspicious  dislike  and  disregard 
which  the  pioneer  community  displays  towards  the 
individual  whose  governing  ideals  take  a different 
line  of  development  from  those  of  his  fellows.  The 
artist,  therefore,  is  likely  to  be  looked  upon  as  a 
queer  being  who  loses  something  of  his  manhood  by 
taking  up  purely  cultural  pursuits,  unless  and  un- 
til, indeed,  he  happens  to  make  money  by  it.  Yet 
one  never  hears  the  intimation  that  because  no 
Shakespeare  or  Raphael  has  ever  yet  appeared  in 
this  country,  none  ever  will.  Very  well — imagine 
instead  the  prevailing  ideal  to  be  domesticity,  and 
you  perceive  at  once  the  invidious  position  of  the 
woman  artist  in  an  exclusively  or  dominantly  mas- 
culine civilization. 

But  what  if  the  emergence  of  genius  does  not 


48  Concerning  Women 

depend  so  much  on  variability  as  upon  the  degree 
of  spiritual  freedom  that  the  environment  allows, 
and  the  amount  and  kind  of  culture  that  is  current 
in  it?  “The  number  of  geniuses  produced  in  a na- 
tion,” says  Stendhal,  “is  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  men  receiving  sufficient  culture,  and  there  is 
nothing  to  prove  to  me  that  my  bootmaker  has  not 
the  soul  to  write  like  Corneille.  He  wants  the  edu- 
cation necessary  to  develop  his  feelings  and  teach 
him  to  communicate  them  to  the  public.”  The  fact 
that  prominent  men  of  science  accept  the  theory  that 
genius  is  explained  by  variability,  along  with  a 
number  of  conclusions  which  they  have  seen  fit  to 
draw  from  it,  is  no  reason  why  their  view  should  be 
considered  final.  Whole  schools  of  scientists  have 
before  now  gone  wrong  in  the  ticklish  business  of 
making  speculative  generalizations;  they  may  go 
wrong  again,  for  men  of  science  are  human,  and 
may  not  be  supposed  to  live  wholly  above  the 
miasma  arising  from  the  stagnant  mass  of  current 
prepossessions.  So  long  as  the  apparent  dearth  of 
female  genius  may  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  on 
other  grounds,  one  is  under  no  compulsion  to  accept 
the  theory  that  it  is  due  to  a natural  and  inescapable 
tendency  toward  mediocrity.  When  regarded  fairly, 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  49 

indeed,  this  theory  has  something  of  an  ad  captan- 
dum  character;  it  is  not  in  itself  disingenuous,  per- 
haps, but  it  lends  itself  with  great  ease  to  an  in- 
terested use.  It  offers  strong  support,  for  example, 
to  an  advocacy  of  an  actual  qualitative  difference  in 
the  education  of  men  and  women.  ^Vomen,  being 
assumed  to  be  fixed  by  nature  at  or  below  the  line 
of  mediocrity,  shall  be  educated  exclusively  for 
marriage,  motherhood,  and  the  occupations  which 
require  no  more  than  an  average  of  reflective  intel- 
ligence."') This  assumption  underlies  the  educational 
plans  of  even  such  great  libertarians  as  Thomas 
Jefferson  and  Theodore  Hertzka;  it  represents  a re- 
version, conscious  or  unconscious,  to  the  primitive 
ideology  which  subordinates  the  individual  to  the 
group,  taking  for  granted  that  the  individual  is  to  be 
educated  not  primarily  for  his  or  her  own  sake,  but 
for  an  impersonal  “good  of  society.”  Thus, 
whether  they  are  aware  of  it  or  not,  those  who  sub- 
scribe to  this  theory  would  not  only  keep  in  woman’s 
way  the  discouraging  postulate  of  inferiority  that  at 
present  stands  against  her,  but  they  would  reinforce 
upon  her  those  arbitrary  limitations  of  opportunity 
to  which  her  position  of  inferiority  in  the  past  may 
not  unreasonably  be  ascribed. 


50 


Concerning  Women 


IV 

I have  mentioned  the  repression  of  natural  im- 
pulse inculcated  upon  women  by  their  upbringing. 
This  will  probably  not  disappear  entirely  until  the 
prevailing  ideal  in  bringing  up  girls  shall  be  to  help 
them  to  become  fully  human  beings,  rather  than 
to  make  them  marriageable;  for  humanity  and 
market-value  have  really  little  in  common!^  For 
centuries  the  minds  and  bodies  of  women  have  been 
moulded  to  suit  the  more  or  less  casual  taste  of  men. 
This  was  the  condition  of  their  profession,  which 
was  to  please  men.  Woman,  in  a word,  got  her  liv- 
j ing  by  her  sex;  her  artificially-induced  deformi- 
ties and  imbecilities  had  an  economic  value:  they 
helped  to  get  her  married.  It  would  be  impossible 
to  imagine  a more  profoundly  corrupting  influence 
than  the  dual  ideal  of  sexuality  and  chastity  that 
has  been  held  up  before  womankind.  “We  train 
them  up,”  says  Montaigne,  “from  their  infancy  to 
the  traffic  of  love.”  Yet  men  would  have  them,  he 
says,  “in  full  health,  vigorous,  in  good  keeping, 
high-fed  and  chaste  together;  1 that  is  to  say,  both 

1 This  was  'written,  needless  to  say,  before  the  casual  taste  of  men 
set  the  fashion  for  women  to  be  mincing  and  sickly. 


Woman  s Status,  Past  and  Present  51 

hot  and  cold.”  The  utter  levity  of  this  traditional 
attitude  makes  it  fair  to  say  that  woman  is  man’s 
worst  failure.  I know  of  no  stronger  argument 
for  the  social  philosophy  of  the  anarchist;  for  there 
is  no  more  striking  proof  of  the  incapacity  of  human 
beings  to  be  their  brothers’  keepers  than  man’s  fail- 
ure, through  sheer  levity,  over  thousands  of  years 
to  govern  woman  either  for  his  good  or  her  own. 

With  the  growing  disposition  of  women  to  take 
their  interests  into  their  own  hands,  this  state  of 
things  is  changing;  but  the  curious  superstitions  to 
which  its  effect  on  the  female  character  has  given 
rise  will  long  survive  it)  The  world’s  literature, 
from  the  Sanscrit  proverbs  to  the  comic  magazine  of 
the  twentieth  century,  is  full  of  disparaging  refer- 
ences to  the  character  of  women;  to  their  frailty,  their 
cunning,  their  deceitfulness,  their  irresponsibility, 
their  treachery — qualities,  all  of  them,  which  in  a 
fair  view  they  seem  bound  to  have  extemporized  as 
their  only  defence  in  a social  order  which  was  proof 
against  more  honourable  weapons.  “A  woman,” 
says  Amiel,  “is  sometimes  fugitive,  irrational,  inde- 
terminable, illogical  and  contradictory.  A great 
deal  of  forbearance  ought  to  be  shown  her,  and  a 
good  deal  of  prudence  exercised  with  regard  to  her, 


52  Concerning  Women 

for  she  may  bring  about  innumerable  evils  with- 
out knowing  it.”  This  is  no  doubt  true,  and  the 
purposes  of  the  moralist  perhaps  demand  no  more 
than  a mere  statement  of  the  fact.  But  the  critic’s 
purposes  demand  that  the  fact  should  give  an  ac- 
count of  itself.  Why  does  woman  so  regularly  bear 
this  character?  Well,  certainly  the  only  life  that 
European  civilization  offered  to  women  in  Amiel’s 
day — the  only  views  of  life  that  it  accorded  them, 
the  only  demands  on  life  that  it  allowed  them — was 
a specific  for  producing  the  kind  of  creature  he 
describes;  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  must  have 
produced  them  by  the  million.  The  inference  is 
inescapable  that  an  equivalent  incidence  of  the  same 
educational  and  environmental  influences  upon  men 
would  have  produced  the  same  kind  of  men.  The 
matter,  in  short,  is  not  one  of  the  primary  or  even 
the  secondary  character  of  women  qua  women  or  of 
men  qua  men ; it  is  one  of  the  effect  of  education  and 
environment  upon  human  beings  qua  human  beings. 

The  effort  to  escape  this  inference  gives  rise  to 
extraordinary  inconsistencies  in  the  current  estimate 
of  female  character,  and  even  the  estimate  put  upon 
it  by  men  of  scientific  habit.  Women  are  supposed, 
for  instance,  to  be  tenderer  and  gentler  than  men — 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  53 

“Tenderness,”  says  Ellen  Key,  “distinguishes  her 
whole  way  of  thinking  and  feeling,  of  wishing  and 
working” — yet  they  are  also  supposed  to  be  more 
vengeful — “Hell  hath  no  fury  . . .”  They  are 
supposed  to  be  creatures  of  impulse  and  sentiment 
— “la  femme,  dont  Vimpulsion  sentimentale  est  le 
seul  guide  ecoute ” 1 — yet  they  are  at  the  same  time 
supposed  to  be  calculating,  particularly  in  their  rela- 
tions with  men.  Diluvial  irruptions  of  sentimental- 
ism are  continually  spewed  over  their  nobility  and 
self-sacrifice  in  the  role  of  motherhood;  yet  men 
have  taken  care  in  the  past  to  deny  them  guardian- 
ship of  their  own  children.  Schopenhauer,  far  on 
the  right  wing,  again,  appears  to  represent  the  legal- 
istic point  of  view  on  this  relation : he  does  not  trust 
them  in  it  beyond  the  first  purely  instinctive  love  for 
the  child  while  it  is  physically  helpless;  he  thinks 
they  should  “never  be  given  free  control  of  their 
children,  wherever  it  can  be  avoided.”  Man,  now, 
is  more  likely,  he  thinks,  to  love  his  child  with  a last- 
ing love,  because  “in  the  child  he  recognizes  his  own 
inner  self ; that  is  to  say  his  love  for  it  is  metaphysi- 
cal [or  egotistical?]  in  its  origin.”  Occasionally, 
again,  the  world  is  treated  to  the  diverting  spectacle 


1 Elie  Faure. 


54  Concerning  Women 

of  some  woman  writer,  like  Dr.  Gina  Lombroso, 
trotting  out  all  the  poor  old  spavined  superstitions 
and  putting  them  through  their  paces  in  order  to 
prove  the  strange  contention  that  women  are  incap- 
able of  making  the  progress  they  have  already  made. 
Dr.  Lombroso’s  ideal  woman,  as  I have  already  re- 
marked elsewhere  in  a review  of  her  recent  book, 
is  something  of  a cross  between  an  imbecile  and  a 
saint;  that  is  to  say,  she  conforms  closely  to  the 
ideal  which  has  been  held  up  before  the  women  of 
the  Christian  world;  an  ideal  towards  which  millions 
of  them  have  striven  with  a faithfulness  which  does 
more  credit  to  their  devotion  than  to  their  intel- 
ligence. 

'Since  any  discussion  of  woman’s  place  in  society 
must  necessarily  be  to  some  extent  a study  in  super- \ 
stition,  one  can  not  really  have  done  with  supersti- 
tion until  one  is  done  with  the  subjects.  It  has 
seemed  to  warrant  some  special  attention  at  the  out- 
set of  this  work  not  only  because  the  past  and  pres- 
ent status  of  womankind  can  not  be  explained  with- 
out reference  to  it,  but  because  the  future  of 
womankind  will  in  large  measure  depend  upon  the 
expeditiousness  with  which  it  and  those  preposses- 
sions which  spring  from  it,  are  laid  aside.  The 


Woman’s  Status,  Past  and  Present  55 

sum  of  these  superstitions  and  prepossessions  may 
be  expressed  in  the  generalization  that  woman  is 
primarily  a function;  and  wherever  any  remote  ap- 
proach to  this  generalization  may  be  discerned  in  a 
discussion  of  her  status  or  her  rights — as  it  may 
at  once  be  discerned,  for  instance,  in  the  sentimental 
side  of  the  work  of  feminists  as  staunch  as  Ellen 
Key  and  Olive  Schreiner — at  just  that  point  the  ab- 
dication of  the  scientific  spirit  in  favour  of  super- 
stition may  be  suspected. 


CHAPTER  III 


INSTITUTIONAL  MARRIAGE  AND  ITS  ECONOMIC 
ASPECTS 
I 

Marriage,  by  a strictly  technical  definition,  is  a 
natural  habit;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  a relationship 
proceeding  out  of  the  common  instinct  of  male 
and  female  to  mate,  and  to  remain  together  until 
after  the  birth  of  one  or  more  children,1  Organized 
society,  on  the  other  hand,  always  makes  it  a civil 
institution,  and  sometimes  a religious  institution. 
So  long  as  man  remained  in  the  natural  state,  roam- 
ing about  in  search  of  his  food  as  do  the  apes  to- 
day, it  may  be  supposed  that  marriage  was  based 
on  personal  preference  and  involved  only  the  selec- 
tive disposition  of  the  individual  man  and  woman 
and  their  common  concern  for  the  safety  of  their 
offspring.  But  as  advancing  civilization  enabled 
mankind  more  easily  to  obtain  and  augment  its 
food-supply,  and  consequently  to  secure  greater 

1 Westermarck  defines  it  as  “a  more  or  less  durable  connexion 
between  male  and  female  lasting  beyond  the  mere  act  of  propagation 
till  after  the  birth  of  the  offspring.” 

56 


Institutional  Marriage  57 

safety  and  also  to  satisfy  its  gregarious  instinct  by 
living  in  numerous  communities,  the  habit  of  mar- 
riage underwent  a process  of  sanction  and  regula- 
tion by  the  group,  and  was  thus  transformed  into 
a civil  institution.  While  society  remains  ethnical, 
the  family  exercises  supervision  over  the  sexual  re- 
lations of  its  members,  but  always  subject  to  the 
approval  or  disapproval  of  the  larger  group — the 
tribe  or  clan.  When  the  political  State  emerges, 
this  function  continues  to  be  exercised  by  the  fam- 
ily, but  it  is  subject  to  sanction  by  the  State  and  is 
gradually  absorbed  by  it.  Yet  even  where  the  State 
has  usurped  almost  all  the  prerogatives  of  the  fam- 
ily, custom  continues  to  give  powerful  sanction  to 
interference  in  marriage  both  by  relatives  and  by 
the  community. 

Where  the  tribal  religion  takes  on  the  form  of 
ancestor-worship,  or  where  much  importance  is  at- 
tached to  burial-rites,  marriage  and  reproduction 
take  on  a religious  significance.  “As  the  dead,” 
says  Dr.  Elsie  Clews  Parsons,  “are  dependent  on 
the  living  for  the  performance  of  their  funeral  rites 
•and  sacrificial  observances,  marriage  itself  as  well 
as  marriage  according  to  prescribed  conditions, 
child-begetting  and  bearing,  become  religious  duties. 


58  Concerning  Women 

Marriage  ceremonial  not  infrequently  takes  on  a 
religious  character.  Infanticide,  abortion,  celibacy 
other  than  celibacy  of  a sacerdotal  character,  and 
adultery,  become  sins.  The  punishment  of  the 
adulteress  is  particularly  severe,  although  in  some 
cases  her  value  as  property  may  guarantee  her 
against  punishment  by  death.”  1 

Thus  there  may  be,  and  in  most  civilized  societies 
there  is,  a fourfold  interference  in  marriage:  inter- 
ference by  the  family,  by  the  community,  by  the 
State,  and  by  the  Church.  An  old  Russian  song 
had  it  that  marriages  were  contracted 

By  the  will  of  God, 

By  decree  of  the  Czar, 

By  order  of  the  Master, 

By  decision  of  the  community, 

— with  not  a word  about  the  two  persons  imme- 
diately concerned.  Nor  is  this  strange,  for  mar- 
riage is  not  generally  conceived  of  among  either 
primitive  or  highly  civilized  peoples  as  a personal 
relationship.  It  is  an  economic  arrangement,  an 
alliance  between  families,  a means  for  getting  chil- 
dren. To  allow  so  unruly  a passion  as  love  to  figure 


1 E.  C.  Parsons:  “The  Family.” 


Institutional  Marriage  59 

in  the  selection  of  a mate,  is  an  irregularity  which 
may  under  certain  circumstances  be  tolerated,  but 
one  which  is  nevertheless  likely  to  be  regarded  with 
extreme  disapproval.  As  individualism  makes 
progress  against  group-tyranny,  the  preliminaries 
and  the  actual  contracting  of  marriage  become  less 
the  affair  of  God,  the  State,  the  family  and  the 
community,  and  more  the  affair  of  the  two  people 
chiefly  interested;  but  once  contracted,  the  marriage 
can  hardly  be  said,  even  in  the  most  civilized  com- 
munity, to  be  free  of  considerable  regulation  by  these 
four  influences.  The  time  which  Spencer  foresaw, 
when  “the  union  by  affection  will  be  held  of  primary 
moment  and  the  union  by  law  as  of  secondary 
moment,”  has  by  no  means  arrived.  If  the  married 
couple  be  Roman  Catholics,  for  example,  they  may 
not  free  themselves  from  an  unhappy  marriage 
without  paying  the  penalty  of  excommunication; 
and  if  they  live  in  a State  dominated  by  the  Catholic 
Church,  they  may  be  legally  estopped  from  freeing 
themselves  at  all.  Nor  may  they,  save  by  con- 
tinence, limit  the  number  of  their  offspring  without 
risking  the  same  penalty.  If  they  are  Episcopalians 
or  Lutherans  they  may  divorce  only  on  the  ground 
of  adultery,  and  the  guilty  party  is  forbidden  to  re- 


60  Concerning  Women 

marry.  In  communities  where  the  influence  of  other 
Protestant  sects  predominates,  and  where,  therefore, 
divorce  and  remarriage  are  not  formally  forbidden 
by  the  Church,  the  pressure  of  public  opinion  may 
yet  operate  to  prevent  them.  The  State  not  only 
prescribes  the  form  that  marriage  shall  take,  but  it 
may  also  either  prohibit  divorce — as  in  South  Caro- 
lina, for  example — or  forbid  it  save  in  accordance 
with  such  regulations  as  it  sees  fit  to  make ; and  these 
regulations  are  not  only  of  a kind  that  make  divorce 
prohibitive  to  the  poor,  but  they  are  often  so  humil- 
iating as  to  constitute  an  effective  barrier  to  the  dis- 
solution of  unhappy  unions.  The  State  of  New 
York  offers  an  excellent  illustration.  Adultery  is 
the  only  ground  upon  which  divorce  is  allowed,  and 
even  then  it  may  be  refused  if  the  action  is  taken 
by  mutual  consent.  The  couple  who  wish  to  be 
divorced  must  therefore,  if  there  be  no  legal  cause, 
go  through  the  demoralizing  business  of  making  a 
case,  which  means  that  one  or  the  other  must  pro- 
vide at  least  the  appearance  of  “misconduct”;  and 
even  then  they  are  in  danger  of  being  found  in  col- 
lusion. But  suppose  one  party  to  be  giving  legal 
ground;  then  the  other  party,  in  order  to  get  proof, 
is  obliged  to  resort  to  the  lowest  kind  of  espionage. 


Institutional  Marriage  61 

Such  disreputable  methods,  however  much  they  be 
in  keeping  with  the  nature  and  practices  of  the  State, 
are  hardly  becoming  to  civilized  society,  and  civil- 
ized persons  are  indisposed  towards  them.  Their 
general  effect  is  therefore  to  discourage  application 
for  divorce  in  New  York  and  encourage  it  else- 
where. 

It  is  significant  of  the  unspiritual  estimate  gener- 
ally put  upon  marriage,  that  incompatibility  is  rarely 
allowed  as  a legal  ground  of  divorce.  Violation 
of  the  sexual  monopoly  that  marriage  implies;  pre- 
nuptial unchastity  on  the  part  of  the  woman;  im- 
potence; cruelty;  desertion;  failure  of  support;  in- 
sanity; all  of  these  or  some  of  them  are  the  grounds 
generally  recognized  where  divorce  is  allowed  at  all. 
This  is  to  say  that  society  demands  a specific  griev- 
ance of  one  party  against  the  other,  a grievance  hav- 
ing physical  or  economic  consequences,  as  a pre- 
requisite to  freedom  from  the  marriage-bond.  The 
fact  that  marriage  may  be  a failure  spiritually  is 
seldom  taken  into  account.  Yet  there  is  no  difficulty 
about  which  less  can  be  done.  Infidelity  may  be 
forgiven  and  in  time  forgotten;  the  deserter  may 
return;  the  delinquent  may  be  persuaded  to  support 
his  family;  the  insane  person  may  recover;  even 


62  Concerning  Women 

impotence  may  be  cured.  But  if  two  people  are  out 
of  spiritual  correspondence,  if  they  are  not  at  ease 
lin  one  another’s  society,  there  is  nothing  to  be  done 
about  it.  “Anything,”  says  Turgenev,  “may  be 
smoothed  over,  memories  of  even  the  most  tragic 
domestic  incidents  gradually  lose  their  strength  and 
bitterness ; but  if  once  a sense  of  being  ill  at  ease  in- 
stalls itself  between  two  closely  united  persons,  it 
can  never  be  dislodged.”  Modern  society  is  slowly, 
very  slowly,  coming  into  the  wisdom  which  prompted 
this  observation.  The  gradual  liberalization  of  the 
divorce-laws  which  our  moralists  regard  as  a symp- 
tom of  modern  disrespect  for  the  sacredness  of  mar- 
riage, is  in  fact  a symptom  of  a directly  opposite 
tendency — the  tendency  to  place  marriage  on  a 
higher  spiritual  plane  than  it  has  hitherto  occupied. 

The  State  assumes  the  right  either  to  allow  arti- 
ficial limitation  of  offspring  or  to  make  it  a crime; 
and  it  exercises  this  assumption  according  to  its 
need  for  citizens  1 or  the  complexion  of  its  religious 
establishment.  It  also  fixes  the  relative  status  and 

1 It  is  interesting  in  this  connexion  to  note  that  in  post-war 
England,  where  the  thousands  of  unemployed  workers  constitute  a 
heavy  drain  on  the  public  purse  and  a baffling  political  problem,  it 
has  been  made  lawful  to  sell  devices  for  birth-control.  One  now 
sees  these  devices  conspicuously  displayed  in  druggists’  windows. 


Institutional  Marriage  63 

rights  of  the  two  parties.  In  several  American 
States,  for  instance,  a married  woman  is  incompetent 
to  make  contracts  or  to  fix  her  legal  residence.  The 
Virginia  law  recognizes  the  primary  right  of  the 
father  to  the  custody  of  the  child,  yet  it  makes  the 
mother  criminally  liable  for  the  support  of  children. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  husband  is  everywhere  re- 
quired by  law  to  support  his  wife.  Such  laws,  of 
course,  like  most  laws,  are  felt  only  when  the  indi- 
vidual comes  into  conflict  with  them.  The  State 
does  not  interfere  in  many  cases  where  married 
couples  subvert  its  regulations — for  example,  the 
law  which  entitles  the  husband  to  his  wife’s  services 
in  the  home  and  permits  him  to  control  her  right 
to  work  outside  the  home,  does  not  become  binding 
save  in  cases  where  the  husband  sees  fit  to  invoke 
it.  As  a rule  the  State  forbids  fornication  and  adul- 
tery.1 In  case  of  separation  and  divorce,  if  the 
parties  disagree  concerning  financial  arrangements 
Or  the  custody  of  children,  it  exercises  the  right  to 
arbitrate  these  matters. 

The  sanctions  of  interference  by  the  family,  save 
in  the  contracting  of  marriage  by  minors,  are  at 

1 In  Maryland  fornication  is  not  a crime,  although  it  may  entitle 
a husband  to  divorce  if  he  did  not  know  of  it  at  the  time  of  the 
marriage.  Adultery  is  punishable  by  a fine  of  ten  dollars. 


64  Concerning  Women 

present  those  of  custom,  affection,  and  (in  so  far 
as  it  exists  and  may  be  made  effective)  economic 
power.  When  two  persons  have  decided  to  marry, 
for  instance,  it  remains  quite  generally  customary 
for  the  man  to  go  through  the  formality  of  asking 
the  woman’s  nearest  male  relation  for  her  hand. 
This  is  of  course  a survival  from  the  period  when 
a woman’s  male  guardian  had  actual  power  to  pre- 
vent her  marrying  without  his  consent.  The  in- 
fluence of  affection  is  too  obvious  to  require  illustra- 
tion; it  is  the  subtlest  and  most  powerful  sanction 
of  family  interference.  Economic  power  is  perhaps 
most  commonly  used  to  prevent  or  compel  the  con- 
tracting of  marriage.  It  may  make  itself  felt,  where 
parents  or  other  relatives  are  well-to-do,  in  threats 
of  disinheritance  if  prospective  heirs  undertake  to 
make  marriages  which  are  displeasing  to  them.  A 
striking  instance  of  the  use  of  this  power  is  the  wall 
of  the  late  Jay  Gould,  which  required  each  of  his 
children  to  obtain  consent  of  the  others  before  marry- 
ing. It  is  not  uncommon  for  legators  to  stipulate 
that  legatees  shall  or  shall  not  marry  before  a cer- 
tain age  under  penalty  of  losing  their  inheritance. 

These  influences  do  not  always,  of  course,  take 
the  same  direction.  At  present,  for  example,  arti- 


Institutional  Marriage  65 

ficial  limitation  of  offspring  receives  irregular  but 
effective  community-sanction  in  face  of  opposition 
by  Church  and  State.  Or  again,  public  opinion 
almost  universally  condemns  the  idea  that  a father 
may,  by  his  will,  remove  his  children  from  the  cus- 
tody of  their  mother,  although  the  State,  as  in  Mary- 
land and  Delaware,  may  sanction  such  an  act. 
But,  however  much  they  may  check  one  another, 
these  influences  are  all  constantly  operating  to  re- 
strict and  regulate  marriage  away  from  its  original 
intention  as  a purely  personal  relationship,  and  to 
keep  it  in  the  groove  of  economic  and  social  institu- 
tionalism. The  reasons  for  this  are  to  be  found 
in  the  vestigiary  fear  of  sex,  love  of  power,  love  of 
the  habitual,  religious  superstition,  and  above  all  in 
the  notion  that  the  major  interests  of  the  group  are 
essentially  opposed  to  those  of  the  individual  and 
are  more  important  than  his.  A combination  of 
two  of  these  motives  has  recently  come  under  my 
own  observation  in  the  case  of  a young  woman  whose 
parents  can  not  forgive  her  for  having  divorced  a 
man  whom  she  did  not  love  and  married  a man 
whom  she  did.  They  were  accustomed  to  their  first 
son-in-law,  and  resent  the  necessity  of  adjusting 
themselves  to  the  idea  of  having  a new  one.  More- 


66  Concerning  Women 

over,  they  feel  that  their  daughter  should  have 
spared  them  the  “disgrace”  of  a divorce.  The  fact 
that  she  was  unhappy  in  her  first  marriage  and  is 
happy  in  her  second  seems  to  have  little  weight  with 
them.  They  did  their  best  to  prevent  her  second 
marriage  and  are  at  present  exerting  every  effort  to 
make  it  unsuccessful.  It  is  needless  to  emphasize 
the  fact  that  this  order  of  interference  can  not  be 
expected  to  disappear  while  the  notion  persists  that 
the  actions  of  one  adult  member  of  a family  or 
group  can  possibly  reflect  credit  or  discredit  upon 
all  the  other  members. 


n 

If  one  be  an  apologist  for  the  present  economic 
and  social  order,  there  is  little  fault  to  be  found  with 
this  endless  and  manifold  regulation  of  the  most 
intimate  concern  of  the  individual,  save  that  it  is 
not  as  effective  as  it  once  was.  Society,  we  are  being 
constantly  reminded,  is  founded  in  the  family.  No 
one,  I think,  will  quarrel  with  this  statement,  par- 
ticularly at  this  stage  of  the  world’s  rule  by  the  ex- 
ploiting State.  Marriage  is,  to  quote  Dr.  E.  C. 
Parsons,  “an  incomparable  protection  of  society — 


Institutional  Marriage  67 

as  society  has  been  constituted”;  and  this  for  a 
reason  which  Dr.  Parsons  did  not  mention.  Nor 
has  the  reason  been  stated  by  anyone  else,  so  far  as 
I am  aware,  although  the  fact  is  emphasized  often 
enough.  It  is  emphasized,  however,  largely  in  the 
spirit  of  a contemporary  French  writer  who  declares 
that  “an  institution  upon  which  society  1 is  based 
should  not  be  represented  to  society  as  an  instru- 
ment of  torture,  a barbarous  apparatus.  We  know, 
on  the  contrary  that  this  institution  is  good,  and 
that  it  would  be  impossible  to  conceive  of  a better 
one  upon  which  to  base  our  customs.”  Well,  but 
suppose  it  is  an  instrument  of  torture,  or  at  least 
that  we  have  come  to  find  it  highly  unsatisfactory; 
must  we,  in  spite  of  the  fact,  resolve  to  think  it  good 
because  society  is  based  upon  it?  Ought  we  not, 


1 It  is  important  to  call  attention  to  the  loose  use  of  the  word 
“Society”  in  this  quotation,  as  practically  synonomous  with  the 
State.  In  their  final  definition,  the  two  terms  are  antithetical. 
There  is  general  agreement  among  scholars,  according  to  Professor 
Beard,  that  in  the  genesis  of  the  State,  exploitation  was  primary, 
and  organization  for  other  purposes,  e.  g.,  what  we  know  as  “law 
and  order,”  was  incidental  and  secondary.  The  term  Society,  then, 
really  implies  the  disappearance  of  the  State,  and  is  commonly  so 
used  by  scholars.  Even  now,  too,  tribes  which  have  never  formed 
a State  and  are  without  government  of  any  kind,  maintain  society, 
i.  e.,  a quite  highly  organized  mode  of  communal  life.  Thomas 
Jefferson  remarked  this  phenomenon  among  the  American  Indian 
hunting  tribes,  and  so  did  the  historian  Parkman. 


68  Concerning  Women 

rather,  to  examine  the  order  of  society  that  institu- 
tionalized marriage  helps  to  perpetuate,  in  order  to 
determine  whether  it  is  worth  preserving  at  the  cost 
of  preserving  also  an  institution  which  has  become 
“an  instrument  of  torture”? 

The  reason  why  marriage  is  “an  incomparable 
protection  to  society”  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  power  of  the  exploiting  State  de- 
pends upon  the  relative  helplessness  of  its  exploited 
subjects;  and  nothing  renders  the  subject  more  help- 
less against  the  dominance  of  the  State  than  mar- 
riage. For  monopoly,  under  the  protection  of  the 
State,  has  rendered  the  support  of  a family  ex- 
tremely difficult,  by  closing  free  access  of  labour  to 
natural  resources  and  thus  enabling  the  constant 
maintenance  of  a labour-surplus.  Where  there  is 
little  or  no  land  not  legally  occupied,  access  to  the 
soil  is  impossible  save  on  terms  that  render  it,  if  not 
downright  prohibitive,  at  least  unprofitable.  The 
breadwinner  who  has  neither  land  nor  capital  is 
thus  forced  to  take  his  chance  in  a labour-market 
overcrowded  by  applicants  for  work  who  are  in 
exactly  his  position:  they  are  shut  out  from  oppor- 
tunity to  work  for  themselves,  and  obliged  to  accept 
such  employment  as  they  can  get  at  a wage  deter- 


Institutional  Marriage  69 

mined  not  by  their  capacity  to  produce,  but  by  the 
number  of  their  competitors.  Not  only  is  the  wage- 
earner  thus  obliged  to  content  himself  with  a small 
share  of  what  his  labour  produces;  he  is  forced  to 
pay  out  of  that  share  further  tribute  to  monopoly  in 
most  of  the  things  he  buys.  For  shelter,  for  the 
products  of  the  soil  and  mines,  he  pays  tribute  to 
the  monopolist  of  land  and  natural  resources;  for 
industrial  products,  in  most  countries,  he  pays  to  the 
monopoly  created  by  high  tariffs.  Or  he  may  have 
to  pay  to  both,  as  in  the  case  of  the  purchaser  of  steel 
products. 

Such  disadvantages  tend  not  only  to  keep  wages 
near  the  subsistence-level,  but  to  keep  opinions 
orthodox — or  if  not  orthodox,  unexpressed.  For  the 
wage-earner  gets  his  living  on  sufferance:  while  he 
continues  to  please  his  employer  he  may  earn  a liv- 
ing, however  inadequate,  for  himself  and  family; 
but  if  he  show  signs  of  discontent  with  the  estab- 
lished order,  by  which  his  employer  benefits  or 
thinks  he  benefits,  he  is  likely  to  find  himself  sup- 
planted by  some  other  worker  whose  need  makes 
him  more  willing  to  conform,  in  appearance  at  least. 
There  are  even  conditions  under  which  his  mere 
unorthodoxy  may  bring  him  to  jail,  in  thirty-four 


70  Concerning  Women 

States  of  this  enlightened  Republic.  There  are  ex- 
ceptional cases,  of  course,  where  his  skill  or  special 
training  makes  him  a virtual  monopolist  in  his  line 
and  thus  renders  him  indispensable,  like  a certain 
well-known  professor  who  continues  to  hold  his  posi- 
tion in  spite  of  his  avowed  economic  unorthodoxy 
simply  because  there  is  no  one  else  who  can  fill  it. 
But  it  may  be  perceived  at  once  that  the  average 
wage-earner  with  a family  to  support  will  be  under 
much  greater  pressure  to  dissemble  than  will  the 
worker  who  has  no  family;  for  where  the  single 
worker  risks  privation  for  himself  alone,  the  married 
worker  takes  this  risk  for  his  family  as  well.  Nor 
does  economic  pressure  operate  only  towards  the 
appearance  of  conformity;  it  operates  towards  actual 
conformity,  for  the  person  who  has  children  to  rear 
and  educate  will  be  strongly  impelled  towards  con- 
servatism by  his  situation.  If  he  can  get  along  at 
all  under  the  present  order,  the  mere  vis  inertiae  will 
incline  him  to  fear  for  the  sake  of  his  family  the 
economic  dislocation  attendant  upon  any  revolution- 
ary change,  and  to  choose  rather  to  keep  the  ills  he 
has.1  Moreover,  the  unnatural  situation  popularly 

1 This  motive  is  especially  powerful  in  the  United  States,  because 
monopoly  in  this  country  even  now  permits  people  to  do  relatively 
well.  Moreover,  there  is  still  a strong  current  of  optimism  attrib- 


Institutional  Marriage  71 

called  the  “labour-problem,”  brought  about  through 
exclusion  from  the  land,  tends  to  create  the  psy- 
chology of  the  wage-slave:  it  tends  to  make  people 
regard  the  opportunity  to  earn  one’s  living  not  as  a 
natural  right,  but  as  something  that  one  receives  as 
a boon  from  one’s  employer,  and  hence  to  accept 
the  idea  that  an  employer  may  be  justified  in  dic- 
tating to  his  employees  in  matters  of  conduct  and 
opinion. 

(Thus  the  economic  conditions  brought  about  by 
the  State  operate  to  make  marriage  the  State’s  strong- 
est bulwark;  and  those  who  believe  that  the  preser- 
vation of  the  State,  or  of  a particular  form  of  it, 
is  a sacred  duty — their  number  among  its  victims 
is  legion — are  quite  logical  in  taking  alarm  at  the 
increasing  unwillingness  of  men  and  women  to 

utable  to  the  failure  of  Americans  to  see  that  the  old  days  of  al- 
most unlimited  opportunity  ended  with  the  closing  of  the  frontier. 
If  the  American  family  finds  itself  in  straitened  circumstances,  its 
members  are  likely  to  attribute  the  fact  to  “hard  times,”  and  to  ex- 
pect an  improvement  before  long,  since  the  country  has  recovered 
from  a panic  about  every  twenty  years  for  the  past  century.  They 
do  not  understand  that  the  measure  of  recovery  they  hope  for  is 
now  impossible.  How  many  Americans,  I wonder,  have  stopped  to 
ask  themselves  why  this  country  has  suffered  from  uninterrupted 
economic  “depression,”  with  the  exception  of  the  war-period,  ever 
since  the  panic  of  1907?  What  they  regard  as  depression  is  really 
the  normal  result  of  complete  land-monopoly  and  high  tariffs.  Prices 
have  continued  to  rise  since  the  war;  which  is  to  say  that  real 
wages  have  fallen. 


72  Concerning  Women 

marry,  or  if  they  do  marry,  to  have  children.  They 
are  logical  not  only  because  marriage  and  children 
make  for  endurance  of  established  abuses,  but  be- 
cause, as  I have  already  remarked,  it  is  important 
for  the  State  to  have  as  many  subjects  as  possible, 
to  keep  up  a labour-surplus  at  home  and  to  fight  for 
the  interests  of  its  privileged  class  abroad;  that  is, 
so  long  as  industry  is  able  to  meet  the  exactions  of 
monopoly  and  still  pay  interest  and  wages.  Where 
monopoly  has  reduced,  interest  and  wages  to  -the 
vanishing-point,  the  State  can  no  longer  be  said  to 
be  a going  concern;  its  breakdown  is  then  only  a 
matter  of  time.  This  point  has  been  reached  in 
England,  and  hence  the  condition  of  which  I have 
spoken:  a numerous  population  is  no  longer  desir- 
able, for  as  unemployed  they  are  a burden  on  the 
State  and  a menace  to  its  existence.  But  as  long 
as  the  State  is  a going  concern,  the  Spartan  rule  is 
that  best  suited  to  its  interests:  obligatory  marriage, 
and  unlimited  reproduction. 

In  modern  civilization,  however,  in  spite  of  the 
enormous  power  of  the  State,  it  would  be  extremely 
difficult  if  not  impossible  to  enforce  this  rule.  The 
State,  with  all  its  power,  can  not  force  its  subjects  to 
obey  any  law  which  they  do  not  really  want  to  obey 


Institutional  Marriage  73 

— or  perhaps  I should  say,  which  they  want  not  to 
obey;  and  the  growth  of  individualism  has  created 
a general  distaste  for  any  effort  on  the  part  of  gov- 
ernment to  meddle  directly  in  the  affairs  of  citizens. 
Attempts  to  do  so  are  likely  to  bring  humiliation  on 
the  Government  through  its  inability  to  enforce 
them,  and  to  generate  in  the  population  a salutary 
disrespect  for  law;  as  the  attempt  to  enforce  the 
fourteenth  and  eighteenth  Amendments  has  done  in 
this  country.  With  the  decline  of  the  patriarchal 
system,  the  contracting  of  marriage  if  not  the  status 
of  marriage,  is  coming  to  be  regarded  as  the  ex- 
clusive concern  of  the  individual.  Many  who 
would  not  for  a moment  tolerate  compulsory  mar- 
riage will  tolerate  a humiliating  regulation  of  mar- 
riage; they  will  allow  the  State  to  make  of  marriage 
a life-long  bondage,  but  they  reserve  the  right  to 
refuse  to  enter  into  bondage.  The  State  may  penal- 
ize celibacy  by  levying  a special  tax  on  unmarried 
persons;  but  it  can  no  longer  force  people  to  aban- 
don it. 

^Indeed,  one  may  say  without  overmuch  exaggera- 
tion that  at  present  the  preservation  of  marriage  as 
an  institution  is  almost  solely  due  to  its  tenacity  as 
an  instinctive  habit.  I For  while  marriage  is  the 


74  Concerning  Women 

strongest  bulwark  of  the  State,  the  economic  order 
for  the  sake  of  which  the  State  exists  tends  neverthe- 
less to  discourage  marriage  because  it  progressively 
concentrates  wealth  in  a few  hands,  and  thus  de- 
prives the  great  mass  of  people  of  adequate  means  to 
rear  and  educate  families.  This  condition  is  largely 
responsible  for  the  fact  that  celibacy,  illegitimacy 
and  prostitution  are  on  the  increase  in  every  civil- 
ized country;  and  that  the  average  age  at  which 
marriage  takes  place  tends  steadily  to  become  higher, 
as  it  takes  longer  to  get  into  an  economic  position 
which  makes  possible  the  support  of  a family.  In 
this  connexion,  Katharine  Anthony’s  statement  that 
factory-girls  and  heiresses  are  the  country’s  young- 
est brides  is  significant.  Neither  the  heiress  nor  the 
factory-girl  has  anything  to  gain  by  waiting:  the 
heiress  already  has  economic  security  and  the 
factory-girl  never  will  have  it,  for  she  and  her  hus- 
band— if  she  marries  in  her  own  class — will  always 
be  pretty  much  at  the  mercy  of  conditions  in  the 
labour-market.')  It  should  also  be  remarked  that 
among  the  great  middle  class  the  standard  of  edu- 
cation for  both  sexes,  but  more  particularly  for 
women,  is  higher  than  among  the  very  rich  and  the 


Institutional  Marriage  75 

very  poor;  and  this  tends  to  advance  the  average 
age  for  marriage. 

It  tends  as  well  to  make  children  a heavy  burden 
on  the  parents.  Among  primitive  peoples,  where 
difficulty  in  supporting  a family  is  virtually  un- 
known, where  adjustment  to  the  environment  offers 
no  complexities  and  childhood  is  therefore  not  so 
prolonged,  and  where,  moreover,  children  through 
their  labour  become  an  economic  asset,  they  are  de- 
sirable.1 But  in  a civilized  society  where  the  paren- 
tal sense  of  responsibility  has  developed  to  the  point 
-where  the  child  is  reared  for  its  own  sake,  where 
adaptation  to  the  environment  is  a complex  and 
lengthy  process  involving  expensive  education  and 
prolonged  dependence  of  the  child  upon  the  parents, 
and  where  the  difficulty  of  getting  a start  in  life  tends 
also  to  lengthen  the  period  of  dependence ; in  such  a 
society  it  is  natural  that  the  parental  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility should  find  expression  in  an  artificial 
limitation  of  offspring  to  the  number  that  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  parents  will  enable  them  to  edu- 
cate properly.  There  is  a further  step  that  this 
feeling  can  suggest  in  these  days  of  excessive  eco- 


1 According  to  Herriot,  children  form  the  wealth  of  savage  tribes. 


76  Concerning  Women 

nomic  exploitation  and  ruinous  wars ; that  is,  refusal 
to  reproduce  at  all : and  this  step  an  increasing  num- 
ber of  married  people  are  taking,  to  the  great  dis- 
tress of  self-appointed  guardians  of  our  customs 
and  morals. 

Failure  to  perceive  the  decisive  importance  of  the 
connexion  between  the  economic  condition  of  the 
parents  and  the  proper  equipment  of  children  for 
making  their  way  in  life  often  leads  to  absurd  con- 
tradictions ; as  for  example  in  that  staunch  friend  of 
childhood,  the  late  Ellen  Key.  No  one  is  more  in- 
sistent than  this  writer  upon  the  importance  of  rear- 
ing the  child  for  its  own  good;  yet  she  gravely  de- 
clares that  “from  the  point  of  view  of  the  nation, 
always  from  that  of  the  childrefi,  and  most 
frequently  from  that  of  the  parents,  the  normal 
condition  must  be,  that  the  number  of  children  shall 
not  fall  short  of  three  or  four.”  Miss  Key’s  pri- 
mary failure  is  one  that  must  be  judged  with  great 
severity  because  it  is  both  fundamental  and  typical 
— it  pervades  and  vitiates  the  whole  body  of  feminist 
literature.  It  is  a failure  in  intellectual  seriousness. 
Miss  Key  is  fully  aware  of  a persistent  economic  dis- 
location bearing  on  her  thesis — “At  present  there 
is  a shortage  of  labour  for  those  willing  to  work,  of 


Institutional  Marriage  77 

food  for  the  hungry,  of  educational  advantages  for 
those  thirsting  for  knowledge,  of  nursing  for  the 
sick,  of  care  for  the  children.  The  circumstances 
of  the  majority  are  now  such  as  to  produce,  directly 
or  indirectly,  crime,  drunkenness,  insanity,  consump- 
tion, or  sexual  diseases  in  large  sections  of  the  pop- 
ulation.” Again,  “The  struggle  for  daily  bread, 
the  cares  of  livelihood  . . . are  now  the  stamp  of 
public  as  well  as  private  life.  . . . Married  people 
have  no  time  to  cultivate  their  feelings  for  one  an- 
other, . . . (Through  the  cares  of  livelihood  parents 
have  no  time  to  live  with  their  children,  to  study 
them  in  order  to  be  able  really  to  educate  them.”  1 
One  must  suspect  a peculiar  incapacity  for  logic 
in  the  writer  who  recognizes  such  conditions  and  still 
recommends  three  or  four  children  as  being  the  mini- 
mum number  that  people  should  have  who  wish  to 
do  their  duty  by  their  country,  their  children  and 
themselves.  Miss  Key  has  been  content  to  shirk 
Inquiry  into  the  fundamental  cause  of  these  con- 
ditions, and  hence  the  means  she  recommends  for 
their  cure  are  silly  and  feeble.  An  international 

1 The  first  passage  I have  quoted  is  from  “Love  and  Marriage” ; 
the  other  two  I have  taken  from  Miss  Key’s  “The  Younger  Genera- 
tion,” simply  because  I found  the  ideas  they  contain  somewhat  more 
clearly  and  definitely  expressed  in  that  book  than  in  the  other. 


78  Concerning  Women 

universal  organization  which  is  to  regulate  all  com- 
petition and  all  co-operation;  trade-unionism,  the 
abolition  of  inheritances;  the  exercise  of  “collective 
motherliness”  in  public  affairs;  these  are  some  of 
the  means  she  offers  for  the  regeneration  of  society. 
Probably  never  since  the  remark  attributed  to  Marie 
Antoinette  that  if  the  starving  populace  could  not 
get  bread  they  should  eat  cake,  has  ineptitude  gone 
further.  If  Miss  Key’s  call  to  duty  were  brought 
to  the  attention  of  the  well-to-do  married  couple  of 
the  city  of  New  York  whose  means  are  sufficient  to 
permit  them  to  occupy  an  apartment  of,  let  us  say, 
two  or  three  or  four  rooms,  often  without  kitchen, 
they  might  agree  with  her  in  principle;  but  they 
would  probably  not  attempt  to  bring  up  three  or 
four  children  in  such  straitened  surroundings  and  to 
educate  them  over  a long  span  of  years,  for  a very 
doubtful  future.  If  this  example  seem  special  and 
far-fetched,  I would  remind  my  readers  that  over 
fifty  per  cent  of  people  in  this  country  are  urban 
dwellers,  and  that  the  vast  majority  of  them  are 
worse  off  for  dwelling  space,  not  better,  than  the 
hypothetical  couple  I have  cited. 

It  is,  of  course,  among  those  who  are  worse  off 
that  children  are  most  numerous.  Ignorance  and 


Institutional  Marriage 


79 


religious  scruples— tfor  the  Church  is  strongest 
among  the  ignorant  because  of  their  ignoranceO- 
combine  to  produce  large  families  among  the  class 
that  can  least  afford  them.  For  civilization, 
although  it  denies  these  people  most  things,  grants 
them  too  great  a fecundity.  Among  primitive  peo- 
ples fecundity  is  decreased  by  various  causes,  such 
as  excessively  hard  work,  childbearing  at  a too  early 
age,  and  prolonged  lactation  during  which  contin- 
ence is  often  the  rule.  The  average  number  of  chil- 
dren borne  by  a savage  does  not  often  exceed  five  or 
six,  whereas  the  civilized  woman  may  bear  eighteen 
or  twenty,  and  it  is  not  at  all  exceptional  for  the 
woman  of  our  slums  to  bear  ten  or  twelve.  Among 
west-side  women  of  New  York  whom  Katherine  An- 
thony questioned  concerning  frequency  of  pregnan- 
cies, one  reported  fifteen  in  nineteen  years,  another 
ten  in  twelve  years,  and  another  six  in  nine  years. 
Obviously,  then,  when  eugenists  and  moralists  de- 
plore what  they  term  the  modern  tendency  to  race- 
suicide,  they  refer  to  the  educated  classes.  The 
moralist  argues  from  prepossession  and  may  be  dis- 
missed from  consideration;  but  the  eugenist  has 
scientific  pretensions  which  are  not  without  a certain 
degree  of  validity  and  can  therefore  not  be  lightly 


80  Concerning  Women 

passed  over.  So  long  as  he  argues  for  improvement 
in  the  quality  of  the  race  through  the  substitution  of 
intelligence  for  blind  instinct  in  propagation,  he  is 
on  solid  ground : no  one  unprepossessed  by  the  senti- 
mentalism which  regards  legitimate  children,  how- 
ever untoward  be  the  circumstances  of  their  birth 
and  breeding,  as  a direct  visitation  from  God,  can 
deny  that  voluntary  and  intelligent  attention  to  the 
quality  of  offspring  offers  better  prospects  for  civili- 
zation than  hit-or-miss  quantity-production.  The 
eugenist  deplores  the  fact  that  at  present  this  exer- 
cise of  intelligence  is  confined  to  the  comparatively 
small  class  of  the  educated  and  well-to-do,  and  that 
therefore  the  birth-rate  among  that  class  is  all  too 
small  to  offset  the  unchecked  propagation  of  the 
ignorant  and  unfit.  This  is  unfortunately  true ; and 
it  suggests  the  obvious  question:  Why  is  there  in 
every  modern  State  so  large  a class  of  ignorant  and 
unfit  persons  as  to  constitute  a menace  to  the  vitality 
of  that  State?  (if  it  is  solely  because  the  unfit  are 
allowed  to  propagate  unchecked,  then  those  eugen- 
ists  who  advocate  the  sterilization  of  paupers  and 
imbeciles  and  the  encouragement  of  propagation 
among  the  intelligent  classes  by  an  elaborate  system 
of  State  subsidy,  may  be  listened  to  with  respect  if 


Institutional  Marriage  81 

not  with  perfect  faith  in  the  practicability  of  their 
proposals.  ^ But  how  about  that  large  mass  of  the 
physically  and  mentally  normal  who  live  at  the 
subsistence-level,  and  whose  progeny,  if  economic 
pressure  tighten  a little,  are  likely  to  be  forced  down 
into  the  class  of  underfed  beings,  dulled  and  brutal- 
ized by  poverty,  from  whose  ranks  our  paupers, 
imbeciles  and  criminals  are  largely  recruited?  To 
ignore  the  existence  of  this  perennial  source  of  un- 
fitness is  levity.  To  recognize  it,  and  to  assume  that 
it  results  from  over-propagation  is  to  assume  at  the 
same  time  that  the  earth’s  population  is  too  numerous 
for  comfortable  subsistence  on  the  amount  of  culti- 
vable land  in  existence.  If  this  disproportion  be 
real,  the  only  hope  lies  in  persuading  this  class  to 
limit  its  offspring  voluntarily  to  the  number  that  the 
earth’s  surface  will  comfortably  support.  If  it  be 
only  an  apparent  disproportion  due  to  an  artificial 
shortage  of  land  created  by  monopoly,  then  the 
eugenist’s  program  amounts  simply  to  a recom- 
mendation that  the  population  be  somehow  restricted 
to  the  number  that  can  get  subsistence  on  the  terms 
of  the  monopolist.  Henry  George  has  conclusively 
disproved  the  validity  of  the  Malthusian  theory 
which  underlies  the  assumption  of  over-population, 


82  Concerning  Women 

while  Oppenheimer’s  figures  show  that  if  land  were 
freely  available  for  use,  the  earth’s  present  popula- 
tion might  easily  be  supported  on  one-third  of  its 
arable  surface.1  kHere,  really,  is  the  most  convinc- 
ing answer  to  the  standard  arguments  for  birth- 
control;  yet  so  far  as  I know,  the  opponents  of  birth- 
control  have  never  done  much  with  it,  whether  out 
of  ignorance  or  because  of  the  profound  economic 
readjustments  that  it  implies.  The  eugenist,  too, 
generally  displays  a constitutional  aversion  to  at- 
tacking the  problem  of  unfitness  at  the  right  end 
— which  is,  to  inquire,  first  of  all,  why  it  exists. 
Hence  the  ineptitude  of  his  proposals  for  social  bet- 
terment: they  would  involve  much  unwieldy  gov- 
ernmental machinery  and  considerably  more  in- 
telligence than  any  State  has  ever  displayed  in 
dealing  with  social  questions;  and  they  would  at- 
tack only  the  results  of  our  social  ills,  leaving  the 
causes  freely  operative.2 

While  those  causes  continue  to  operate,  the  sup- 
port of  a family,  save  in  the  comparatively  small 

1 Franz  Oppenheimer,  Theorie  der  Reinen  und  Politischen 
(Ekonomie.  Berlin,  1912. 

2 For  a striking  and  characteristic  example  of  this  ineptitude,  I 
refer  my  readers  to  Dr.  Havelock  Ellis’s  little  book,  “Eugenics  Made 
Plain.” 


Institutional  Marriage  83 

class  of  wealthy  people,  will  be  more  or  less  of  a 
burden.  At  present,  this  burden  bears  most  heavily 
upon  the  middle-class  man  and  the  lower-class 
woman.  Meretricious  standards  of_  respectability, 
among  them  (the  idea  that  a married  woman  must 
not  work  outside  her  home  even  when  she  is  child- 
less, tend  to  make  marriage  from  the  outset  a burden 
on  the  man  of  the  middle  class/)  For  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  since  the  so-called  feminine  occupa- 
tions have  been  taken  out  of  the  home,  a man  no 
longer  gains  an  economic  asset  in  taking  unto  him- 
self a wife.  Rather,  he  assumes  a liability.  This 
is  especially  true  among  the  middle  classes,  where 
social  standing  has  come  to  be  gauged  to  some  extent 
by  the  degree  in  which  wives  are  economically  un- 
productive?^ It  is  a commonplace  in  this  country 
that  women  form  the  leisure  class;  and  this  leisure 
class  of  women,  like  leisured  classes  everywhere, 
has  its  leisure  at  the  expense  of  other  people,  who 
in  this  case  are  the  husbands!)  Moreover,  it  is 
among  the  middle  classes  that  the  standards  of  edu- 
cation are  highest  and  the  rearing  of  children  there- 
fore most  expensive;  and  this  burden  is  usually 
borne  by  the  husband  alone.  Hence  the  emergence 
of  the  type  of  harassed  pater  familias  at  whom  our 


V 


84  Concerning  Women 

comic  artists  poke  much  sympathetic  fun,  who  meets 
his  family  now  and  then  on  Sundays,  foots  their 
bills,  and  is  rewarded  for  his  unremitting  toil  in 
their  behalf  by  being  regarded  much  in  the  light 
of  a cash-register. 

This  sort  of  thing,  of  course,  is  not  the  invariable 
rule.  There  are  many  middle-class  women  who 
give  their  families  untiring  service,  and  an  increas- 
ing number  who,  either  from  choice  or  necessity,  en- 
gage in  gainful  occupations  outside  their  homes, 
j Of  this  country’s  eight  and  one  half  million  women 
breadwinners,  two  million  are  married;  and  it  may 
be  assumed  that  a fair  percentage  of  these  are  of  the 
middle  classT)  The  great  majority,  however,  are 
of  the  labouring  class;  and  upon  these,  economic 
injustice  weighs  most  heavily.  It  is  these  women 
who  bear  most  children;  and  it  is  they  who,  when 
their  husbands  are  unable  or  unwilling  to  meet  the 
growing  expenses  of  the  family,  assume  the  double 
burden  of  “woman’s  work”  in  the  home  and  what- 
ever they  can  get  to  do  outside  that  will  enable 
them  to  earn  a few  dollars  a week,  in  order  to  “keep 
the  family  together.^  Miss  Katharine  Anthony,  in 
her  book,  “Mothers  Who  Must  Earn,”  gives  a strik- 
ing picture  of  the  unskilled  married  women  workers 


Institutional  Marriage  85 

of  west-side  New  York,  victims  of  a crowded  labour- 
market,  who  take  the  hardest  jobs  at  the  lowest  pay, 
in  order  that  they  may  give  some  few  poor  advan- 
tages to  the  children  they  have  brought  into  the 
world  unwillingly,  knowing  that  they  could  not  af- 
ford them.  “The  same  mother,”  says  Miss  An- 
thony, “who  resents  the  coming  of  children  and  re- 
signs them  so  apathetically  to  death,  will  toil 
fourteen  hours  a day  and  seven  days  a week  to  keep 
up  a home  for  the  young  lives  in  her  charge.” 

Such  testimony,  and  testimony  of  a similar  kind 
from  governmental  investigators,  somehow  makes 
the  general  run  of  social  criticism  appear  frivolous 
and  superficial.  The  married  wage-earner,  worn 
with  excessive  childbearinlg,  who  still  finds  strength 
to  work  long  hours  in  laundry  or  factory  during 
the  day  and  do  her  housework  at  night,  hardly  fits 
into  the  picture  of  selfish,  emancipated  women,  wil- 
fully deserting  their  proper  sphere  of  domesticity 
either  to  seek  pleasure  or  to  maintain  their  economic 
independence.  Indeed,  the  idea  of  economic  inde- 
pendence is  quite  at  variance  with  her  notions  of 
respectability.  “Not  to  work,”  says  Miss  Anthony, 
“is  a mark  of  the  middle-class  married  woman,  and 
the  ambitious  west-side  family  covets  that  mark. 


86  Concerning  Women 

Hence  comes  the  attempt  to  conceal  the  mother’s  em- 
ployment, if  she  has  one,  which  is  one  of  the  little 
snobberies  of  the  poor.”  The  sole  object  of  these 
women’s  toil  is  to  preserve  the  home,  chief  prop  of 
a social  order  which  bears  upon  it  with  crushing 
weight;  and  their  adherence  to  a social  philosophy 
which  regards  the  preservation  of  the  home  as 
peculiarly  the  business  of  women  is  evident  in  the 
fact  that  they  contribute  the  whole  of  their  meagre 
earnings  to  its  upkeep,  whereas  their  husbands  are 
likely  to  contribute  only  as  much  of  their  own  earn- 
ings as  they  see  fit. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  conditions  I have 
cited  have  a profound  effect  on  the  psychology  of 
parents,  and  therefore  on  the  lives  of  children.  The 
rearing  of  children,  if  justice  is  to  be  done  them, 
is  one  of  the  most  exacting  tasks  that  can  be  under- 
taken. The  adjustment  that  is  required  to  fit  par- 
ents to  the  personalities  of  their  children  and  chil- 
dren to  those  of  their  parents  and  of  one  another, 
is  in  itself  a most  delicate  and  difficult  process,  and 
one  upon  which  the  nature  of  the  child’s  adjustment 
to  the  larger  world  greatly  depends.  Such  a process 
naturally  involves  friction,  and  therefore,  if  it  is 
to  be  successful,  calls  for  no  little  tact  and  patience 


Institutional  Marriage  87 

in  the  parents;  and  cramped  quarters,  sordid  pov- 
erty, and  exhausting  labour  are  hardly  conducive  to 
the  possession  of  either  of  these  qualities.  Children 
of  the  middle  class,  it  is  remarked  often  enough, 
hardly  know  their  harassed,  overworked  fathers; 
but  children  of  the  labouring  class  are  likely  to  know 
neither  of  their  parents,  or  to  know  them  only  as 
fretful,  quarrelsome  people,  brutalized  by  overwork. 
“The  strain  of  bringing  up  a family  on  the  average 
workingman’s  wage,”  says  Miss  Anthony,  “reduced 
as  this  is  likely  to  be  by  unemployment,  sickness,  or 
drink,  constitutes,  indeed,  the  dark  age  of  the  tene- 
ment mother’s  life.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  good 
will  existing  between  husband  and  wife  often  gives 
way  beneath  it.  ‘I  tell  my  husband,’  said  Mrs. 
Gurney,  ‘it’s  not  right  for  us  to  be  quarreling  all  the 
time  before  the  children.  But  it  seems  like  we  can’t 
help  it.  He’s  so  worried  all  the  time  and  I’m  so 
tired.  If  we  were  easy  in  our  minds  we  wouldn’t 
do  it.’  ” 

Nor  do  the  children  of  these  people  have  anything 
much  better  to  look  forward  to  than  such  a lot  as 
that  of  their  parents,  for  poverty  drives  them  too  into 
the  labour-market  as  soon  as  they  are  old  enough  to 
earn,  to  the  profound  distress  of  reformers  who 


88  Concerning  Women 

refuse  to  face  the  basic  question  of  child-labour, 
namely:  whether  it  is  better  for  human  beings,  even 
if  they  be  children,  to  work  for  their  living  or  to 
starve.  This  applies  not  only  to  the  children  of  our 
industrial  labouring  classes,  but  to  those  of  the  ag- 
ricultural labourer  and  the  tenant-farmer,  who  pay 
the  same  penalty  for  the  exploitation  of  their  par- 
ents. There  is  no  little  irony  in  the  fact  that  out* 
growing  consciousness  of  the  right  of  children  to 
be  well  bom  and  well  reared  proceeds  hand  in  hand 
with  an  economic  injustice  which  renders  it  im- 
possible to  secure  that  right  for  all  children, 
dlf  responsibility  for  the  upbringing  of  children  is 
to  continue  to  be  vested  in  the  family,  then  the  rights 
of  children  will  be  secured  only  when  parents  are 
able  to  make  a living  for  their  families  with  so  little 
difficulty  that  they  may  give  their  best  thought  and 
energy  to  the  child’s  development  and  the  problem 
of  helping  it  to  adjust  itself  to  the  complexities  of 
the  modern  environment."")  Such  a condition  is  not 
utopian,  but  quite  possible  of  attainment,  as  X shall 
show  later.  But  for  the  present,  and  for  some  time 
to  come,  marriage  and  parenthood  will  continue  to 
make  men  and  women  virtual  slaves  of  the  economic 
order  which  they  help  to  perpetuate.  Small  won- 


Institutional  Marriage  89 

der  that  the  women  of  whom  Miss  Anthony  writes 
are  thoroughly  disillusioned  concerning  “marriage/ 
life,”  and  would  avoid  it  if  they  “had  it  to  do  over.”) 
Marriage  as  an  institution  has  little  to  offer  these 
people  save  toil  and  suffering;  it  is,  as  I have  re- 
marked, its  tenacity  as  an  instinctive  habit  that 
makes  them  its  victims.  And  if  it  were  not  for  the 
responsibilities  that  marriage  entails,  responsibilities 
which  make  people  fearful  of  the  economic  uncer- 
tainty involved  in  revolutionary  change,  the  eco- 
nomic order  that  makes  marriage  “an  instrument 
of  torture”  and  thwarts  the  development  of  children, 
would  not  last  overnight. 

Both  as  a personal  relationship  and  as  an  in- 
stitution, marriage  is  at  present  undergoing  a pro- 
found modification  resulting  from  the  changing 
industrial  and  social  position  of  women.  The  ele- 
vation of  woman  from  the  position  of  a chattel  to 
that  of  a free  citizen  must  inevitably  affect  the  in- 
stitution in  which  her  subordinate  position  has  been 
most  strongly  emphasized — which  has  been,  indeed, 
the  chief  instrument  of  her  subordination.  The 
woman  who  is  demanding  her  rightful  place  in  the 
world  as  man’s  equal,  can  no  longer  be  expected  to 
accept  without  question  an  institution  under  whose 


90  Concerning  Women 

rules  she  is  obliged  to  remain  the  victim  of  injus- 
tice."') There  is  every  reason  therefore,  assuming  that 
the  process  of  emancipation  shall  not  be  interrupted, 
to  expect  a continuous  alteration  in  the  laws  and 
customs  bearing  on  marriage,  until  some  adjustment 
shall  be  reached  which  allows  scope  for  the  indi- 
viduality of  both  parties,  instead  of  one  only.  The 
psychological  conflict  involved  in  the  adaptation  of 
marriage  to  woman’s  changing  position  and  the 
changing  mentality  that  results  from  it,  is  not  to  be 
underrated.  At  present  the  process  of  adjustment  is 
needlessly  complicated  and  this  attendant  conflict 
immensely  exaggerated,  by  an  economic  injustice 
which  bears  most  heavily  on  married  people.  In- 
dividualism is  developing  in  modern  society  to  such 
an  extent  that  marriage  based  on  anything  but  af- 
fection seems  degrading;  but  economic  injustice  is 
progressing  simultaneously  with  such  strides  that 
marriage  based  on  nothing  but  affection  is  likely 
to  end  in  disaster;  for  affection  and  the  harassment 
of  poverty  are  hardly  compatible.  If  this  compli- 
cation were  removed,  as  it  could  be,  we  should  prob- 
ably find  that  the  adjustment  of  marriage  to  shifting 
ideals  and  conditions  would  come  about  in  a natural 


Institutional  Marriage  91 

and  advantageous  manner,  as  adjustments  usually 
do  when  vexing  and  hampering  conditions  are  re- 
moved. The  question  will  settle  itself  in  any  case. 
Just  how,  no  one,  of  course,  can  tell;  but  however 
revolutionary  the  adaptation  to  new  conditions  may 
be,  it  will  not  seem  revolutionary  to  the  people  of 
the  future  because  “the  minds  of  men  will  be  fitted 
to  it.”  This  is  an  all-important  fact,  and  one  that 
is  too  little  respected;  for  the  desire  to  enforce  our 
own  moral  and  spiritual  criteria  upon  posterity  is 
quite  as  strong  as  the  desire  to  enforce  them  upon 
contemporaries.  It  is  a desire  which  finds  a large 
measure  of  fulfilment — where  is  the  society  which 
does  not  struggle  along  under  a dead  weight  of 
tradition  and  law  inherited  from  its  grandfathers? 
All  political  and  religious  systems  have  their  root 
and  their  strength  in  the  innate  conservatism  of  the 
human  mind,  and  its  intense  fear  of  autonomy. 
Because  of  this  conservatism,  people  never  move 
towards  revolution;  they  are  pushed  towards  it  by 
intolerable  injustices  in  the  economic  and  social 
order  under  which  they  live.  There  were,  and  are, 
such  injustices  in  the  laws  and  customs  of  the  Chris- 
tian world  governing  marriage  and  the  relations  of 


92  Concerning  Women 

the  sexes ; hence  the  changes  which  have  already  be- 
gun, and  may  conceivably  proceed  until  they  shall 
prove  as  far-reaching  as  those  by  which  marriage 
in  the  past  was  transformed  from  an  instinctive 
habit  into  an  institution  subject  to  regulation  by 
everyone  except  the  two  people  most  intimately  con- 
cerned. 


CHAPTER  IV 


WOMAN  AND  MARRIAGE 
I 

Perhaps  the  most  pronounced  conventional  dis- 
tinction between  the  sexes  is  made  in  their  relation 
to  marriage.  For  man,  marriage  is  regarded  as  a 
state;  for  woman,  as  a vocation.  For  man,  it  is 
a means  of  ordering  his  life  and  perpetuating  his 
name,  for  woman  it  is  considered  a proper  and  fitting 
aim  of  existence.  This  conventional  view  is  yield- 
ing before  the  changing  attitude  of  women  toward 
themselves;  but  it  will  be  long  before  it  ceases  to 
colour  the  instinctive  attitude  of  the  great  majority  of 
people  toward  women.  It  is  because  of  the  usual 
assumption  that  marriage  is  woman’s  special  prov- 
ince, that  I have  discussed  its  general  aspect  some- 
what at  length  before  considering  its  relation  to 
women  in  particular.  This  assumption,  I may 
remark,  has  been  justified  expressly  or  by  implica- 
tion by  all  those  advocates  of  freedom  for  women 
who  have  assured  the  world  that  woman’s  “mission” 


93 


94  Concerning  Women 

of  wifehood  and  motherhood  would  be  better  ful- 
filled rather  than  worse  through  an  extension  of  her 
rights.  If  we  imagine  the  signers  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  in  place  of  proclaiming  the 
natural  right  of  all  men  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pur- 
suit of  happiness,  arguing  with  King  George  that  a 
little  more  freedom  would  make  them  better  hus- 
bands and  fathers,  we  shall  imagine  a pretty  exact 
parallel  for  this  kind  of  argument  on  behalf  of  the 
emancipation  of  women. 

/The  belief  that  marriage  and  parenthood  are  the 
especial  concern  of  women  is  rooted  in  the  idea  that 
the  individual  exists  for  the  sake  of  the  species^ 
Biologically,  this  is  of  course  true;  but  it  is  equally 
true  of  male  and  female.  Among  primitive  peo- 
ples, where  individuation  has  not  progressed  as  far 
as  among  more  highly  civilized  peoples,  this  idea 
still  prevails  in  regard  to  both  sexes.  Among  these 
peoples  the  man  who  must  remain  unmarried 
and  childless  is  considered  quite  as  unfortunate  as 
the  woman  who  suffers  the  same  fate.  Among 
civilized  peoples,  on  the  other  hand,  where  indi- 
viduation has  progressed  farthest,  it  is  not  usual 
ito  look  upon  the  male  as  existing  solely  for  the 
species;  but  it  is  usual  for  the  female  to  be  so  re- 


Woman  and  Marriage  95 

garded,  because,  having  had  less  freedom  than  the 
male,  she  has  not  been  able  to  assert  to  the  same 
extent  her  right  to  live  for  herself.  The  one-sided 
view  that  the  future  of  the  race  depends  solely  on 
women  has  curious  results:  a nation  may  send  the 
best  of  its  male  youth  to  be  destroyed  in  war  without 
overmuch  anxiety  being  manifested  in  any  quarter 
over  the  effect  of  this  wholesale  slaughter  upon  fu- 
ture generations;  but  if  the  idea  of  enlisting  women 
in  military  service  be  so  much  as  broached,  there  is 
an  immediate  outcry  about  the  danger  to  posterity 
that  such  a course  would  involve)  Yet  it  requires 
only  a moderate  exercise  of  intelligence  to  perceive 
that  if  there  must  be  periodic  slaughter  it  would  be 
better,  both  for  the  survivors  and  for  posterity,  if  the 
sexes  were  to  be  slaughtered  in  equal  numbers ; and 
more  especially  is  this  true,  for  obvious  reasons, 
where  monogamy  is  the  accepted  form  of  marriage. 
Again,  although  it  is  extremely  hard  to  get  laws 
passed  to  protect  men  from  the  hazards  of  indus- 
try, the  laws  designed  to  protect  women — i.  e.,  pos- 
terity— which  have  been  passed  at  the  instance  of 
reformers  and  social  workers,  already  constitute  a 
serious  handicap  to  women  workers  in  their  neces- 
sary competition  with  men  in  the  labour-market. 


96  Concerning  Women 

Yet  every  child  must  have  two  parents,  and  cer- 
tainly unfitness  or  disability  in  the  father  must  have 
a bad  effect  upon  his  offspring,  even  though  it  be  less 
harmful  than  unfitness  or  disability  in  the  mother^ 

The  view  of  woman  as  a biological  function  might 
be  strongly  defended  on  the  ground  of  racial  strength 
if  that  function  were  respected  and  she  were  free  in 
discharging  it.  But  it  is  not  respected  and  she  is  not 
free.  The  same  restrictions  that  have  kept  her 
in  the  status  of  a function  have  denied  her  freedom 
and  proper  respect  even  in  the  exercise  of  that 
function.  Motherhood,  to  be  sure,  receives  a great 
deal  of  sentimental  adulation,  but  only  if  it  is  com- 
mitted in  accordance  with  rules  which  have  been 
prescribed  by  a predominantly  masculine  society. 
Per  se  it  is  accorded  no  respect  whatever.  (jVh  en 
it  results  from  a sexual  relationship  which  has  been 
duly  sanctioned  by  organized  society,  it  is  holy,  no 
matter  how  much  it  may  transgress  the  rules  of 
decency,  health,  or  common  sense.,'  Otherwise  it  is 
a sin  meriting  social  ostracism  for  the  mother  and 
obloquy  for  the  child — an  ostracism  and  an  obloquy, 
significantly  enough,  in  which  the  father  does  not 
share. 

The  motives  behind  the  universal  condemnation 


Woman  and  Marriage  97 

of  extra-legal  motherhood  are  various  and  complex ; 
but  I believe  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  strongest  is 
masculine  jealousy.  Motherhood  out  of  wedlock 
constitutes  a defiance  of  that  theory  of  male  pro- 
prietorship on  which  most  societies  are  based ; it  im- 
plies on  the  part  of  woman  a seizure  of  sexual  free- 
dom which,  if  it  were  countenanced,  would  threaten 
the  long-established  dominance  of  the  male  in  sex- 
ual matters,  a dominance  which  has  been  enforced 
by  imposing  all  manner  of  unnatural  social  and  le- 
gal disabilities  upon  women,  such,  for  example, 
as  the  demand  for  virginity  before  marriage  and 
chastity  after  it.  The  woman  who  bears  an  illegi- 
timate child  violates  one  of  these  two  restrictions. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who  begets  an  illegi- 
timate child  violates  no  such  restriction,  for  society 
demands  of  him  neither  virginity  nor  chastity; 
therefore  he  is  not  only  not  punished  by  social  os- 
tracism, but  he  is  often  protected  by  law  from  being 
found  out.1 

The  fact  that  paternity  may  so  easily  be  doubtful 
furnishes  a strong  motive  for  the  attempt  to  enforce 

1 Code  Napoleon:  “La  recherche  de  la  paternile  est  interdite ” 
This  provision  was  expunged  in  1913.  In  Massachusetts,  the  father’s 
name  may  not  be  given  in  the  record  of  birth  except  on  the  written 
request  of  both  father  and  mother.  No  similar  protection  against 
publicity  is  provided  for  the  mother. 


98  Concerning  W omen 

chastity  upon  women;  but  that  this  is  not  so  potent 
as  the  idea  of  male  proprietorship  is  evident  from 
the  practice  which  exists  in  many  primitive  societies, 
and  appears  formerly  to  have  existed  in  Europe,  of 
lending  wives  to  visitors,  as  a mark  of  hospitality. 
Adultery  thus  imposed  on  a woman  by  her  husband 
is  not  only  regarded  as  quite  proper,  but  the  children 
that  may  result  are  considered  his  legitimate  off- 
spring. The  superstitious  notion  that  a woman’s 
honour  is  a matter  of  sex,  and  that  she  can  not  be 
considered  virtuous  if  her  sex-life  is  not  conducted  in 
accordance  with  regulations  imposed  by  organized 
society,  also  has  something  to  do  with  the  disgrace 
that  attaches  to  illegitimate  motherhood;  but  of 
course  this  superstition  itself  has  its  source  in  mas- 
culine dominance.  Indeed,  there  is  no  need  to  em- 
phasize the  fact  that  the  whole  mass  of  taboo  and 
discrimination  arrayed  against  the  unwedded  mother 
and  her  child  is  the  direct  result  of  the  subjection  of 
women;  for  in  a society  where  women  dominated — 
or  even  where  they  were  the  equals  of  men — illegiti- 
macy would  either  not  exist  at  all,  or  its  consequences 
would  be  made  to  bear  either  upon  the  father  or 
upon  both  parents  equally.  This  may  seem  an  ex- 
travagant statement  in  view  of  the  harshness  with 


Woman  and  Marriage  99 

which  women  themselves  are  prone  to  treat  the  un- 
married mother.  But  it  should  not  be  forgotten  that 
women  are  what  the  procrustean  adaptations  of  a 
factitious  morality  have  made  them.  They  have 
'been  taught  to  believe  that  motherhood  out  of  wed- 
lock is  a cardinal  sin,  and  the  value  and  fragility  of 
reputation  have  been  effective  hindrances  to  any  im- 
pulse of  lenience  toward  the  sinner.  Their  attitude, 
moreover,  has  been  tinged  with  a feeling  that  may 
be  termed  professional.  Marriage  has  been,  gener- 
ally speaking,  the  only  profession  open  to  them; 
their  living  and  their  social  position  have  depended 
on  it,  and  still  do  in  great  measure;  therefore  the 
woman  who  commits  a sexual  irregularity  acts  un- 
professionally,  somewhat  as  the  trader  who  smuggles 
wares  into  a tariff  ridden  country  and  undercuts  his 
competitors.  The  position  of  the  unmarried  mother 
is  analogous  to  that  of  the  married  mother  in  certain 
societies  of  which  I have  already  spoken,  whose 
children  are  considered  illegitimate  because  she  has 
not  been  bought.  Even  the  prostitute,  although  she 
is  a social  outcast,  is  sooner  tolerated,  because  while 
prostitution,  like  marriage,  has  been  established  on 
a commercial  basis,  it  is  a non-competing  institution. 
It  does  not  impair  the  economic  value  of  the 


ioo  Concerning  Women 

“virtuous”  woman’s  chief  asset.  Prostitution  is 
condoned  as  a protective  concession  to  the  postulated 
sexual  needs  of  men;  the  prostitute  has  been  justi- 
fied, and  even  praised  in  a back-handed  way,  as  . 
“the  most  efficient  guardian  of  virtue”;  1 that  is  to 
say,  of  the  arbitrary  restraints  on  women  which 
pass  for  virtue  in  a society  where  woman  is  the 
repository  of  morality.  Illegitimacy,  on  the  other 
hand,  or  at  least  that  large  share  of  it  which  implies 
a fall  from  conventional  virtue,  is  an  embarrassing 
suggestion  of  sexual  need  in  woman.  Therefore, 
it  is  a disturbing  phenomenon,  intimating  as  it  does 
to  virtuous  women  that  the  duplex  morality  to  which 
their  freedom  is  sacrificed  is  unnatural  and  un- 
workable. 

There  is  a sense,  of  course,  in  which  extra-legal 
motherhood  is,  if  not  sinful,  at  least  unjust.  The 
mother  knows  that  the  child  she  bears  out  of  wed- 
lock will  be  forced,  although  innocent,  to  share  with 
her  in  the  world’s  displeasure  at  her  defiance  of  con- 
ventional taboo,  and  that  the  sneers  of  its  legiti- 
mately born  playmates  may  have  a blighting  effect 
upon  its  spiritual  development.  She  knows  also, 
unless  she  be  well-to-do  or  especially  well  qualified 

1 Lecky,  “History  of  European  Morals.”  Chapter  V. 


Woman  and  Marriage  ioi 

to  earn,  that  her  child  will  be  at  a disadvantage  from 
the  start  in  the  matter  of  livelihood  and  education 
unless  the  father  be  willing — or  required  by  law — 
to  contribute  to  its  support.  There  is  likely  to  be  a 
grim  consistency  in  legal  injustices.  Sometimes 
the  denial  of  one  right  makes  expedient  the  denial 
of  another,  as  when  the  poor,  having  been  reduced 
by  legalized  privilege  to  want  and  squalor,  are 
legally  deprived  of  the  alcohol  with  which  they  in- 
crease their  wretchedness  in  an  attempt  to  find  for- 
getfulness of  their  misery.  The  denial  to  women 
of  economic  opportunity  has  made  expedient  denial 
of  freedom  in  performing  the  function  of  mother- 
hood. (_Men,  having  enjoyed  a virtual  monopoly  of 
earning  power,  have  been  regarded  as  the  natural 
providers  for  women  and  children;  therefore  a 
woman  has  been  required  to  get  a legal  provider 
before  she  could  legally  get  a child;  and  if  one 
accepted  her  legal  disabilities  without  questioning 
their  justice,  this  restraint  might  appear  quite  jus- 
tifiable. ) This  may  be  taken  as  an  argument  for 
weakness  or  wantonness  in  the  unmarried  mother. 
If  so,  it  must  certainly  apply  with  equal  force  to 
the  unmarried  father — with  double  force  indeed,  for 
he  knows  that  his  act  will  not  only  add  to  the  dif- 


102  Concerning  Women 

ficulties,  numerous  enough  under  the  best  circum- 
stances, that  his  child  will  have  to  contend  with,  but 
that  it  means  social  ostracism  for  the  mother.  Thus 
every  illegitimate  child,  as  society  is  at  present  con- 
stituted, is  the  victim  not  only  of  social  but  of 
parental  injustice. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  discuss  further  the  eco- 
nomic aspects  of  the  question.  In  a society  where 
economic  opportunity  is  pretty  well  monopolized 
by  men,  the  task  of  the  mother  with  children  to  sup- 
port is,  as  I have  shown  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
extremely  difficult;  and  it  may  even  be  rendered 
impossible  where  the  disgrace  of  unmarried  mother- 
hood decreases  such  comparatively  slight  opportu- 
nity as  industry,  even  now,  offers  a woman^  The 
effect  of  this  disability'  shows  clearly  in  any  com- 
parison of  the  death-rates  among  legitimate  and 
illegitimate  babies.  The  rate  among  illegitimate 
children  is  often  twice  as  high  as  that  among  chil- 
dren born  in  wedlock.  Truly  marriage  is  an  in- 
valuable protection  to  motherhood  and  childhood  in 
a society  which  denies  them  any  other. 

Instead  of  joining  in  the  universal  condemnation 
of  illegitimacy,  it  seems  more  reasonable  to  question 
the  ethics  of  a society  which  permits  it  to  exist. 


Woman  and  Marriage  103 

Certainly  no  social  usage  could  be  more  degrading 
to  women  as  mothers  of  the  race  than  that  which 
makes  it  a sin  to  bear  a child ; and  nothing  could  be 
more  grotesquely  unjust  than  a code  of  morals,  re- 
inforced by  laws,  which  relieves  men  from  respon- 
sibility for  irregular  sexual  acts,  and  for  the  same 
acts  drives  women  to  abortion,  infanticide,  prostitu- 
tion and  self-destruction.  I know  of  no  word  that 
may  be  said  in  justification  of  such  a code  or  of  a 
society  that  tolerates  it.  As  marriage  ceases  to  be 
a vested  interest  with  women,  and  as  their  growing 
freedom  enables  them  to  perceive  the  insult  to  their 
humanity  that  this  kind  of  morality  involves,  they 
will  refuse  to  stand  for  it.  Those  who  prefer  to 
regard  woman  as  a function  will  devote  their  energy 
to  securing  conditions  under  which  she  may  bear  and 
bring  up  children  with  a greater  degree  of  freedom 
and  self-respect  than  conventional  morality  allows 
her.  As  for  those  who  prefer  to  regard  her  as  a 
human  being,  they  will  naturally  demand  the  aboli- 
tion of  all  discriminations  based  on  sex;  while  all 
women  must  certainly  repudiate  the  barbarous  in- 
justice of  organized  society  to  the  illegitimate  child. 

This  is  hardly  to  be  regarded  as  a prophecy,  for 
the  revolt  has  already  begun.  A small  minority  of 


104  Concerning  Women 

women  in  Europe  have  for  some  time  been  denounc- 
ing this  injustice,  the  most  prominent  among  them 
being  the  famous  Swedish  champion  of  childhood, 
Ellen  Key?  Their  influence  has  already  been  re- 
flected in  the  laws  of  several  countries.  In  Scandi- 
navia, in  Switzerland,  and  even  in  France,  laws 
have  already  been  enacted  either  removing  or  modi- 
fying the  legal  disabilities  of  the  child  born  out  of 
wedlock,  and  fixing  the  responsibilities  of  the  father. 
There  are  similar  laws  in  Australia  and  New  Zea- 
land. These  laws  vary  in  scope,  but  their  gen- 
eral tendency  is  toward  the  abolition  of  illegitimacy 
and  recognition  of  joint  parental  responsibility  for 
every  child  brought  into  the  world.  In  this  coun- 
try, where  unjust  legal  discriminations  against  un- 
married mothers  and  their  children  are  still  in  force, 
the  Woman’s  Party  is  demanding  laws  recognizing 
every  child  as  legitimate,  and  determining  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  unmarried  parents.  The  abolition 
of  illegitimacy  will  naturally  mean  that  the  child  of 
unmarried  parents  will  have  the  same  right  to  the 
father’s  name,  and  to  support  and  inheritance,  as 
the  child  born  in  wedlock. 

There  is  a general  impression,  to  which  I have 
adverted,  that  marriage  is  a great  protection  to 


Woman  and  Marriage  105 

women.  Bachofen  and  his  followers  even  went  so 
far  as  to  suppose  that  she  herself  originally  devised 
it  for  that  purpose.  This  school  quite  overlooked 
the  fact  that  in  so  far  as  it  has  been  a protection  it 
has  been  so  only  because  society  has  been  inimical 
to  her  interests,  and  has  allowed  her  no  other  de- 
fence against  itself.  Marriage  has  certainly  not 
protected  her  in  the  past  from  hard  labour,  cruelty, 
and  mental  and  spiritual  deterioration.  In  spite 
of  these  well-known  facts,  the  notion  persists  that 
it  is  of  inestimable  benefit  to  her;  and  those  in- 
fluenced by  this  superstition  are  likely  to  fear  that 
to  abolish  illegitimacy,  with  its  humiliating  conse- 
quences, will  be  to  encourage  “free  love”  and  thus  to 
expose  women  to  victimization  by  unscrupulous  men. 
Such  a view  not  only  carries  an  untenable  assump- 
tion of  feminine  inferiority,  but  it  carries  an  equally 
untenable  assumption  that  marriage  constitutes  a 
protection  against  victimization  by  unscrupulous 
men.  Not  only  did  our  marriage-laws  until  re- 
cently give  a woman  into  the  absolute  power  of  her 
husband,  however  unscrupulous  he  might  be,  but 
they  left  her  no  way  of  escape.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  protected  the  husband’s  sexual  monopoly  of  his 
wife  and  his  right  to  be  considered  the  only  legal 


io6  Concerning  Women 

parent  of  their  children.  Indeed,  the  law  has  gone 
further;  it  has  exposed  women  to  victimization  by 
protecting  men  from  detection  in  illegitimate  parent- 
age. Laws  equalizing  the  responsibilities  of  men 
and  women  towards  illegitimate  children,  will  re- 
duce temptation  to  unscrupulous  conduct,  for  men 
will  be  aware  that  if  it  result  in  the  birth  of  a child 
they  will  be  obliged  to  acknowledge  their  parent- 
hood and  assume  the  attendant  responsibilities?'! 

I might  remark  here  that  some  communities  have 
tried  to  deal  with  this  question  in  what  seems  to 
me  a very  bungling  manner,  namely:  by  forcing 
the  “seducer”  of  a woman  under  the  legal  age  of 
consent  to  choose  between  marrying  her  and  going 
to  jail.  Such  laws  represent  concessions  to  tradi- 
tional prejudices,  and  have  little  relation  either  to 
justice  or  common  sense.  They  take  no  cognizance 
of  the  inclination  of  the  parties  or  their  fitness  for 
marriage;  hence  they  afford  a stupid  way  of  legiti- 
mizing the  child.  It  would  be  much  more  sensible 
to  regard  every  child  as  legitimate  by  the  very  fact 
of  having  arrived  in  the  world,  and  to  demand  of 
its  parents  a full  discharge  of  parental  responsibil- 
ity, without  complicating  it  with  the  very  different 
question  of  marital  obligations.  Another  legal  pro- 


Woman  and  Marriage  107 

vision  which  is  as  general  as  it  is  humiliating  to 
women  is  that  which  permits  a father  to  recover 
damages  from  the  seducer  of  his  daughter.  This 
law,  which  is  in  force  in  several  of  our  States,  is 
supposed  to  find  justification  in  the  daughter’s  status 
as  a servant  in  her  father’s  house;  but  since  the  law 
grants  him  no  similar  redress  for  the  seduction  of  a 
servant  who  is  not  his  daughter,  it  is  evident  that 
its  real  basis  is  in  a surviving  notion  of  woman  as 
the  natural  property  of  a male  owner.  These 
laws  do  not  lessen  the  disgrace  that  attaches 
to  extra-legal  birth;  rather  they  recognize  and  en- 
dorse it. 

The  importance  of  abolishing  illegitimacy  is  not 
to  be  underrated,  for  it  means  the  removal  of  the 
legal  sanctions  which  have  enforced  a barbarous 
custom.  But  the  abolition  of  illegitimacy  can  not  be 
expected  entirely  to  remove  the  stigma  attaching 
to  unmarried  motherhood  and  birth  out  of  wedlock. 
That  will  disappear  only  when  the  economic  inde- 
pendence of  women  shall  have  resulted  in  a spiritual 
independence  which  will  lead  them  to  examine  criti- 
cally the  social  dogmas  that  have  been  forced  upon 
them,  and  to  repudiate  those  which  conflict  with  jus- 
tice. In  other  words,  it  will  involve  an  adapta- 


108  Concerning  Women 

tion  to  more  humane  ethical  standards;  an  adapta- 
tion which  has  begun  but  may  be  long  in  reaching 
completion,  for  superstition  and  taboo  are  not  easily 
eradicated. 


II 

The  assumption  that  justice  to  motherhood  and 
childhood  will  undermine  the  institution  of  mar'- 
riage  implies  that  marriage  as  an  institution  is  based 
on  injustice7|which  is  to  assume  that  it  is  fundamen- 
tally unsound. That  it  does,  under  present  eco- 
nomic conditions,  involve  serious  injustice  to  both 
sexes  I have  shown-  in  the  preceding  chapter.  But 
this  notion  implies  something  more:  it  implies  that 
marriage  is  acceptable  to  women  only  or  chiefly  be- 
cause it  offers  them  a position  of  privilege — the  priv- 
ilege of  exemption  from  the  social  and  economic 
consequences  of  illegitimate  motherhood.  /1  There  is 
some  show  of  reason  in  this;  for  the  disabilities 
which  marriage  puts  on  women  are  in  most  com- 
munities humiliating  and  onerous,  more  particularly 
since  the  unmarried  woman  has  so  generally  suc- 
ceeded in  establishing  her  right  to  be  treated  as  a 
free  agent.  The  abolition  of  illegitimacy  may 


Woman  and  Marriage  109 

conceivably  undermine  institutional  marriage;  yet 
hardly  before  women  are  economically  free.  For 
her  need  of  society’s  protection  against  itself 
in  the  discharge  of  her  maternal  function  has 
certainly  had  less  to  do  with  woman’s  long  ac- 
quiescence in  the  disabilities  which  marriage  in- 
volves than  the  fact  that  marriage  offered  the  only 
career  which  society  approved  for  her  or  gave  her 
much  opportunity  to  pursue.  She  was  under 
enormous  economic  and  social  pressure  to  accept 
those  disabilities,  and  she  yielded,  precisely  as  thou- 
sands of  men  who  have  been  under  analogous  pres- 
sure to  get  their  living  under  humiliating  conditions, 
have  yielded,  rather  than  not  get  it  at  all. 

Since  we  have  been  discussing  unmarried  mother- 
hood, we  may  appropriately  begin  our  consideration 
of  these  disabilities  by  examining  the  status  of 
motherhood  in  marriage.  The  married  mother, 
particularly  in  modern  times,  is  the  object  of  a sickly 
pawing  and  adulation  and  enjoys  a certain  formal 
respect — not,  however,  as  a mother,  but  as  a mother 
Of  legitimate  children.  While  she  continues  to  live 
with  her  husband,  she  may  exercise  considerable 
supervision  over  the  rearing  of  her  offspring;  in- 
deed in  some  communities  she  is,  by  force  of  cus- 


no  Concerning  Women 

tom,  supreme  in  this  province.  But  in  case  of  sep- 
aration or  the  death  of  her  husband,  she  may  find 
herself  without  any  legal  claim  to  their  guardian- 
ship or  custody,  for  until  recently  children  born  in 
wedlock  have  been  generally  held  to  belong  exclu- 
sively to  the  father.  The  principle  of  joint  guar- 
dianship is  coming  to  be  recognized  in  modern 
jurisprudence,  but  there  are  communities  where  the 
old  laws  still  hold.  In  Virginia,  for  example,  the 
father’s  claim  is  always  preferred  to  that  of  the 
mother.  In  Maryland  and  Delaware  it  is  preferred 
to  such  an  extent  that  he  may  even,  by  his  will,  de- 
prive her  of  the  guardianship  and  custody  of  her 
children  after  his  death.  This  provision  is  a sur- 
vival from  English  common  law,  and  is  a logical 
correlative  of  woman’s  status  under  that  law,  which 
was  that  of  a minor.  Her  position  with  regard  to 
her  children  was  one  of  responsibilities  with  no  com- 
pensating rights;  and  although  the  discriminations 
against  her  have  been  modified  here  and  there,  this 
is  still  pretty  generally  her  position.  In  this  respect 
the  unmarried  mother  is  better  off  than  the  mother 
of  legitimate  children,  for  in  most  countries,  as  the 
only  legal  parent  of  her  child,  she  exercises  the  right 
of  guardianship  and  control  and  possesses  full 


Woman  and  Marriage  ill 

claim  to  their  services  and  earnings.  (The  unmar- 


ried mother,  in  a word,  bears  her  own  children;  the 
married  mother  bears  the  children  of  her  husbanc 


Usage,  as  every  one  knows,  is  far  ahead  of  the 


laws  governing  the  rights  of  the  married  mother. 
In  France,  where  her  legal  position  is  notoriously 
bad,  her  relation  to  her  family  is  nevertheless  one 
of  influence  and  authority.  In  this  country  also 
her  actual  position  is  generally  far  better  than  that 
allowed  her  by  the  law.  But  this  is  merely  to  say 
that  most  husbands  are  more  humane  than  the  law; 
and  the  fact  may  not  be  ignored  that  so  long  as 
legal  discriminations  bar  her  from  an  equal  share 
with  her  husband  in  the  control  and  guardianship 
of  her  children,  she  exercises  parental  rights  only  on 
sufferance.  1 It  is  the  law  which  finally  fixes  her 
status  in  this  as  in  other  matters ; and  as  long  as  she 
may  legally  be  made  to  suffer  injustice  on  account  of 
her  sex,  she  can  hardly  be  called  her  husband’s 
equal,  no  matter  what  privileges  she  may  enjoy  by 
virtue  of  his  indulgence. 

So  much  for  the  disabilities  of  the  married 
mother.  Her  compensations  are  the  immunity  that 
marriage  affords  her  from  society’s  displeasure  and 
consequent  persecution;  the  inestimable  advantage 


1 12  Concerning  Women 

of  her  husband’s  co-operation  in  making  a home 
for  her  children,  and  in  rearing  and  educating  them; 
and  the  fact  that  they  have  a legal  claim  upon  him 
for  support  and  inheritance. 

Her  own  claim  for  support  does  not  depend,  in 
law,  upon  her  motherhood,  but  upon  her  wifehood. 
She  is  entitled  to  support  whether  she  has  children 
or  not.  On  the  other  hand  the  law,  in  most  com- 
munities, allows  her  nothing  more  than  mere  sup- 
port, while  at  the  same  time  it  maintains  certain  re- 
strictions upon  her  economic  independence.  Al- 
though most  States  now  allow  the  wife  to  control  her 
own  earnings  in  industry,  her  services  in  the  home 
are  still  pretty  generally  her  husband’s  property,  and 
any  savings  that  result  from  economy  in  her  domes- 
tic management  belong  to  him,  and  so  does  any 
money  earned  by  her  in  her  own  house,  as  from 
taking  in  boarders  or  lodgers.  In  short,  while  she 
works  in  the  home  her  status  is  that  of  her  husband’s 
servant.1  He  may  even,  as  in  Michigan,  still  pre- 
vent her  from  undertaking  employment  outside  the 

1 A recent  decision  in  the  State  of  New  York  declared  that  a 
husband  is  not  required  to  fulfil  his  promise  to  return  money  loaned 
him  by  his  wife,  when  she  has  accumulated  it  through  economy  in 
her  housekeeping;  because  every  saving  of  the  kind  is  the  property 
of  the  husband,  as  are  the  services  of  the  wife.  The  wife  has  no 
money  of  her  own. 


Woman  and  Marriage  113 

home,  simply  by  withholding  his  consent.  Nor  is 
this  the  only  way  in  which  the  opportunities  of  a 
married  woman  are  restricted.  She  is  frequently 
disqualified  by  her  status  for  engaging  in  business 
on  her  own  account,  or  for  doing  so  without  her 
husband’s  consent.  She  may  also  be  disqualified 
by  law  or  prejudice  for  engaging  in  certain  profes- 
sions, such  as  teaching,  an  occupation  in  which, 
strangely  enough,  a married  woman  is  frequently 
held  to  be  incapable. 

The  claim  for  alimony  which  at  present  constitutes 
such  a fecund  source  of  injustice  to  men  and  corrup- 
tion among  women,  implies  the  assumption  that  a 
woman  is  economically  helpless,  that  she  is  a natural 
dependent  whose  support,  having  been  undertaken 
by  her  husband,  must  be  continued  even  after  di- 
vorce, until  she  dies  or  finds  another  husband  to 
support  her.  It  does  not  take  into  account  the 
woman’s  rightful  claim  to  any  property  that  she 
may  have  helped  her  husband  to  accumulate,  for 
the  question  whether  or  not  she  shall  receive  alimony 
is  within  the  discretion  of  the  court.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  awarding  of  alimony  may  give  a woman 
a claim  to  income  from  property  possessed  by  her 
husband  before  marriage  and  therefore  not  right- 


1 14  Concerning  Women 

fully  to  be  enjoyed  by  her;  it  may,  furthermore,  give 
her  an  equally  unjustifiable  lien  on  his  future  earn- 
ings. Thus  it  allows  women  at  once  too  little  and 
too  much.  If  the  community  is  to  continue  to  fix  the 
economic  obligations  which  marriage  shall  entail,  it 
might  be  fairer  to  both  sexes  if  those  obligations 
were  fixed  as  they  have  been  in  certain  of  our  West- 
ern States.  In  those  States,  property  acquired  dur- 
ing marriage  is  regarded  as  common  property,  and 
in  case  of  separation  must  be  divided  equally. 
Neither  party  may,  during  the  marriage,  dispose  of 
such  property  without  consent  of  the  other ; nor  may 
either  party  dispose  of  more  than  half  of  it  by  will. 
On  the  other  hand,  either  party  has  free  disposal  of 
property  acquired  before  marriage,  or  inherited 
during  marriage.  In  case  one  party  dies  intestate, 
the  other  shares  equally  with  children  in  his  or  her 
half  of  the  common  property,  and  in  other  property. 
Thus  the  law  raises  woman  above  the  status  of  a 
dependent  and  recognizes  marriage  as  an  equal 
partnership.  Such  laws,  of  course,  do  not  fit  all 
cases,  for  all  marriages  are  by  no  means  equal 
partnerships;  but  so  long  as  the  State  insists  upon 
maintaining  a blanket-regulation  of  the  marital  rela- 
tion, some  such  arrangement  would  seem  to  be  more 


Woman  and  Marriage  115 

nearly  just,  both  to  men  and  women,  than  the  laws 
now  in  force  in  most  communities. 

I have  given  only  a partial  list  of  the  economic 
disabilities  enforced  upon  a good  many  millions  of 
married  women.  Their  status  in  the  various  coun- 
tries of  the  civilized  world  ranges  all  the  way  from 
complete  subjection  to  their  husbands  to  complete 
equality  with  them.1  The  subjection  of  women, 
like  all  slavery,  has  been  enforced  by  legally  estab- 
lished economic  disadvantages;  and  upon  the  mar- 
ried woman  these  disadvantages,  or  some  of  them, 
are  still  binding  in  most  communities.  The  law  de- 
prived her  of  the  right  to  her  own  property  and  her 
own  labour,  and  in  return  gave  her  a claim  upon 
her  husband  for  bare  subsistence,  which  is  the  claim 
of  a serf.  Since  woman’s  partial  emergence  from 
her  subjection,  and  the  consequent  modification  of 
the  discriminations  against  her,  laws  which  were 
logical  and  effective  when  her  status  was  that  of  a 
chattel  have  been  allowed  to  survive  other  laws  which 
made  them  necessary.  The  result  is  a grotesque 
hodge-podge  of  illogical  and  contradictory  provi- 
sions which  involve  injustice  to  both  sexes,  and 

1 The  State  of  Wisconsin  has  made  men  and  women  equal  before 
the  law. 


n6  Concerning  Women 

should  be  abolished  by  the  simple  expedient  of  mak- 
ing men  and  women  equal  in  all  respects  before  the 
law,  and  sweeping  away  all  legal  claims  which  they 
now  exercise  against  one  another  by  virtue  of  the 
marriage-bond. 

This  would  mean,  of  course,  that  a woman  might 
no  longer  legally  claim  support  from  her  husband 
by  virtue  of  her  wifehood ; nor  should  she  in  fairness 
■be  able  to  do  so  when  all  his  claims  to  her  property 
and  services  had  been  abolished.  There  is  no  rea- 
son why  the  disabilities  which  marriage  imposes 
on  women  should  be  done  away  with  and  those 
which  it  imposes  on  men  retained.  To  take  such 
a course  would  be  to  turn  the  tables  and  place  women 
in  a position  of  privilege.  The  fact  that  women 
are  still  at  considerable  disadvantage  in  the  indus- 
trial world  might  appear  to  justify  such  a position; 
but  there  is  a better  way  of  dealing  with  their 
economic  handicaps  than  the  way  of  penalizing  hus- 
bands and  demoralizing  a large  number  of  women 
by  degrading  marriage,  for  them,  to  the  level  of  a 
means  of  livelihood,  gained  sometimes  through  vir- 
tual blackmail.  Given  complete  equality  of  the 
sexes,  so  that  prejudice  may  no  longer  avail  itself 
of  legal  sanction  for  excluding  women  from  the 


Woman  and  Marriage  117 

occupations  in  which  they  may  elect  to  engage,  the 
economic  handicaps  from  which  they  may  still  suffer 
will  be  those  resulting  from  the  overcrowded  condi- 
tion of  the  general  labour-market.  The  ultimate 
emancipation  of  woman,  then,  will  depend  not  upon 
the  abolition  of  the  restrictions  which  have  subjected 
her  to  man — that  is  but  a step,  though  a necessary 
one — but  upon  the  abolition  of  all  those  restrictions 
of  natural  human  rights  that  subject  the  mass  of 
humanity  to  a privileged  class. 

This  phase  of  woman’s  problem  is  the  main  thesis 
of  my  book;  and  since  it  will  come  in  for  detailed 
consideration  in  subsequent  chapters,  I leave  it  for 
the  present  and  proceed  to  discuss  some  probable  re- 
sults of  sex-equality  and  the  removal  of  legal 
claims  which  marriage  now  gives  husband  and  wife 
against  one  another. 

The  wife  would  no  longer  be  humiliated  by  the  as- 
sumption that  as  a married  woman  she  is  the  natural 
inferior  of  her  husband,  and  entitled  to  society’s 
protection  against  the  extreme  results  of  the  disabili- 
ties that  her  status  involves.  If  she  became  his 
housekeeper,  she  would  do  so  by  free  choice,  and 
not  because  her  services  were  his  legal  property; 
and  her  resultant  claim  on  his  purse  would  be  fixed 


n8  Concerning  Women 


by  mutual  arrangement  rather  than  by  laws  allowing 
her  the  claims  of  a serf.  The  marriage,  if  it  be- 
came an  economic  partnership,  would  be  so  by 
mutual  consent  and  arrangement,  and  would  thus 
no  longer  be  a one-sided  contract,  legally  defined, 
in  which  all  the  rights  were  on  the  side  of  the  hus- 
band, but  compensated  in  too  many  cases  by  unjust 


privileges 


same  time, 


the  temptation  to  marry  for  economic  security  or  ease 
(would  be  lessened.  This  temptation  besets  both 
men  and  women,  though  not  in  the  same  degree,  be- 
cause men,  through  the  economio  .advantage  en- 
joyed by  their  sex,  are  oftener  in  a position  of  ease 
than  women  are.  It  is  the  temptation,  arising  out  of 
man’s  natural  desire  to  gratify  his  needs  with  the 
least  possible  exertion,  to  live  by  the  means  of  others 
rather  than  by  one’s  own  labour.  Its  gratification 
through  marriage  would  not  be  rendered  impossible 
by  the  mere  abolition  of  coercive  laws  governing  the 
marriage  relation;  but  at  least  its  cruder  manifesta- 
tions, such  as  the  frequent  attempts  of  unscrupulous 
or  demoralized  women  to  use  marriage  for  purposes 
of  extortion,  would  no  longer  assail  the  nostrils  of 
the  public.  Its  reduction  to  a minimum  must  await 


Woman  and  Marriage  119 

the  establishment  of  an  economic  order  under  which 
self-support  will  be  easy  and  certain. 

More  general  and  binding,  even,  than  the  eco- 
nomic obligations  that  marriage  entails  are  the  per- 
sonal claims  that  it  creates.  In  so  far  as  these 
claims  are  psychological — those  of  affection  and 
habit,  or  attachment  to  children — their  regulation 
and  abrogation  will  always  afford  a problem  which 
must  be  solved  by  the  two  persons  concerned.  There 
is  at  present  a stronlg  tendency  to  equalize  the  inci- 
dence of  the  laws  whereby  the  State  defines  these  re- 
lations and  imposes  them  on  married  people.  The 
old  assumption  of  feminine  inferiority  in  sexual 
rights  is  gradually  yielding  to  a single  standard  for 
both  sexes.  So,  also,  the  requirement  that  the  wife 
shall  in  all  matters  subordinate  her  will  and  judg- 
ment to  the  will  and  judgment  of  her  husband,  tends 
to  be  modified  by  the  new  view  of  woman  as  a free 
agent  rather  than  a mere  adjunct  to  man.  Quali- 
fications for  marriage  and  grounds  for  divorce  tend 
to  become  the  same  for  both  sexes  as  the  State  is 
forced  to  relinquish  its  right  to  regard  as  offences  in 
one  sex  actions  which  it  does  not  recognize  as  of- 
fences in  the  other.  It  would  appear,  indeed,  that 


120  Concerning  Women 

the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  the  marriage-law, 
however  humiliating  its  provisions  may  be,  will  bear 
equally  on  men  and  women. 

But  mere  equalization  of  the  law’s  incidence  leaves 
untouched  the  previous  question  whether  any  third 
person — and  the  State  assumes  the  role  of  a third 
person — has  a legitimate  right  to  define  and  regu- 
late the  personal  relations  of  adult  and  presumably 
mature  people.  So  long  as  the  basic  assumption 
goes  unchallenged  that  the  State  may  grant  to  man 
and  woman  lifelong  monoply-rights  in  one  another, 
or  monopoly-rights  which  shall  endure,  despite  the 
inclination  of  the  persons  concerned,  during  the 
State’s  pleasure,  so  long  will  complaints  of  harsh  or 
unjust  marriage  or  divorce  laws  prove  the  truth  of 
Mill’s  dictum  that  “no  enslaved  class  ever  asked  for 
complete  liberty  at  once  . . . those  who  are  under 
any  power  of  ancient  origin,  never  begin  by  com- 
plaining of  the  power  itself,  but  only  of  its  op- 
pressive exercise.”  Marriage  under  conditions  ar- 
bitrarily fixed  by  an  external  agency  is  slavery; 
and  if  we  allow  the  right  of  an  external  agency — be 
it  State,  family,  or  community — to  place  marriage 
in  so  degrading  a position,  we  necessarily  deny  the 
freedom  of  the  individual  in  this  most  intimate  of 


Woman  and  Marriage  121 

relationships,  and  put  ourselves  in  the  position  of 
petitioners  for  privilege  when  we  sue  for  an  im- 
provement in  the  rules  to  which  we  have  subjected 
ourselves. 

When  this  fundamental  fact  is  borne  in  mind,  it 
becomes  at  once  apparent  that  marriage  will  gain  in 
dignity  through  the  abolition  of  all  legal  sanction 
upon  the  personal  claims  that  it  involves.  In  a 
community  which  had  renounced  all  claim  to  pre- 
scribe legally  the  nature  of  the  marriage-bond,  its 
duration,  and  the  manner  of  its  observance,  there 
would  be  no  washing  of  soiled  domestic  linen  in  the 
squalid  publicity  of  courtrooms  and  newspaper- 
columns;  no  arbitration  of  noisy  domestic  differences 
by  judges  whose  only  qualification  for  the  office  is 
that  they  have  had  enough  political  influence  to  get 
themselves  elected;  none  of  the  demoralizing  con- 
sequences that  the  sense  of  proprietorship  in  one  an- 
other has  on  the  dispositions  of  married  people. 
Marriage  might  still  be  publicly  registered ; it  would 
no  longer  be  publicly  regulated.  'Its  regulation 
would  be  left  to  the  people  whom  it  concerned,  as 
it  properly  should  be  and  safely  could  be;  for  as 
Mill  remarked,  “the  modern  conviction,  the  fruit  of 
a thousand  years  experience,  is  that  things  in  which 


122  Concerning  Women 

the  individual  is  the  person  directly  interested,  never 
go  right  but  as  they  are  left  to  his  own  discretion, 
and  that  any  regulation  of  them  by  authority,  save 
to  protect  the  rights  of  others,  is  sure  to  be  mischiev- 
ous.” The  only  way  to  protect  married  people 
against  the  bad  faith  which  one  may  show  toward 
the  other,  is  to  leave  the  door  wide  open  for  either 
of  them  to  be  quit  of  the  union  the  minute  it  ceases 
to  be  satisfactory.  If  society  for  any  reason  sees  fit 
to  close  the  door  to  freedom,  it  sets  union  by  law 
above  the  union  by  affection  on  which  alone  true 
marriage  is  based;  and  in  so  doing  it  is  responsible 
for  an  amount  of  injustice,  spiritual  conflict,  and 
suffering  which  no  attempt  at  equitable  regulation 
can  ever  compensate.  Such  attempts  are  in  reality 
mere  efforts  to  adjust  the  marriage-relation  to  the 
fundamental  injustice  of  the  marriage-law. 

Perhaps  the  most  serious  objection  to  the  union  by 
law  is  that  it  is  so  often  an  effective  barrier  against 
the  union  by  affection;  for  the  union  by  law  com- 
plicates marriage  with  a great  many  uses  that  are 
not  properly  germane  to  it;  such  as  the  custom  of 
taking  on  one  another’s  family  and  friends,  and  the 
setting  up  of  a common  menage  where  this  most  inti- 
mate and  delicate  of  relationships  is  maintained  in 


Woman  and  Marriage  123 

a trying  semi-publicity  under  the  critical  and  un- 
wavering scrutiny  of  relatives  and  friends.  The  in- 
fluence of  the  expected  extends  to  the  regulation  of 
the  menage  and  the  division  of  labour.  A lover 
would  hardly,  perhaps,  require  his  mistress  to  darn 
his  socks;  but  if  she  became  his  wife  he  would  prob- 
ably yield  to  the  immemorial  expectation  that  a mar- 
ried woman  shall  do  her  husband’s  mending.  So, 
likewise,  a woman  may  refuse  to  accept  support 
from  her  lover  so  long  as  he  is  only  her  lover,  and 
accept  it  as  a matter  of  course  when  the  union  has 
been  legalized.  All  conventional  uses  have  a purely 
fortuitous  and  incidental  connexion  with  marriage; 
yet  they  often  fret  it  into  failure.  As  Jane  Littell 
remarked  not  long  ago  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly, 
“being  friends  with  someone  to  whom  the  law  binds 
one  is  not  so  easy  as  it  sounds.”  This  is  especially 
true  where  the  law  assumes  a natural  inferiority  in 
one  party  to  the  contract,  as  it  almost  universally 
does. 

I have  not  forgotten  the  children.  One  could 
hardly  do  so  in  an  age  when  sentimentalism  offers 
them  as  the  final  and  unanswerable  reason  for  con- 
tinuing to  tolerate  the  injustice  involved  in  institu- 
tionalized marriage.  But  the  very  fact  that  it  is  the 


124  Concerning  Women 

sentimentalist  who  thus  defends  established  abuses 
is  in  itself  enough  to  warrant  considerable  wariness 
in  dealing  with  his  arguments ; for  when  the  defend- 
ers of  any  cause  have  recourse  to  sentimentality,  it 
is  likely  to  be  for  want  of  solid  ground  under  their 
feet,  or  in  order  to  obscure  a doubtful  ulterior  mo- 
tive. Sentimentalism  is  a sugar  coating  on  the  pill 
of  things  as  they  are,  which  makes  it  easier  for  many 
people  to  swallow  it  than  to  contemplate  a dose 
which  is  at  once  more  salutary  and  more  formidable, 
namely:  things  as  they  ought  to  be.  When  one 
hears  the  sentimentalist  proclaiming  the  sacredness 
of  marriage,  one  may  agree  with  him;  but  at  the 
same  time  one  must  wonder  what  kind  of  marriage 
he  means;  whether  it  is  the  ceremony  performed  by 
a minister  or  a magistrate,  or  the  union  which  two 
people  have  made  sacred  through  mutual  respect, 
confidence  and  love.  Such  marriages  as  this  last 
have  sometimes  been  without  benefit  of  clergy— 
Would  these  be  as  sacred  to  the  sentimentalist  as  the 
marriage  which  has  been  sanctified  only  in  law? 
Again,  when  one  listens  to  the  good  old  saws  about 
the  glory  of  motherhood,  one  may  be  interested  to 
know  the  conditions  under  which  it  is  proposed  to 
call  it  glorious;  and  when  domesticity  is  held  up  to 


Woman  and  Marriage  125 

admiration  as  woman’s  natural  vocation,  one  won- 
ders whether  the  sponsor  of  domesticity  is  willing 
to  put  his  argument  to  the  test  by  leaving  her  free  to 
choose  that  vocation  or  not,  as  she  will,  or  whether 
his  praise  is  a mere  preface  to  the  demand  that  she 
be  forced  into  this  natural  vocation  by  the  method 
of  denying  her  an  alternative.  So,  likewise,  when 
one  hears  the  argument  that  marriage  should  be 
indissoluble  for  the  sake  of  children,  one  cannot 
help  wondering  whether  the  protagonist  is  really 
such  a firm  friend  of  childhood,  or  whether  his  con- 
cern for  the  welfare  of  children  is  merely  so  much 
protective  coloration  for  a constitutional  and  super- 
stitious fear  of  change. 

Children  are  really  as  helpless  as  women  have  al- 
ways been  held  to  be;  and  in  their  case  the  reason  is 
not  merely  supposition.  Woman  was  supposed  to 
be  undeveloped  man.  The  child  is  undeveloped 
man  or  woman;  and  because  of  its  lack  of  develop- 
ment it  needs  protection.  To  place  it  in  the  abso- 
lute power  of  its  parents  as  its  natural  protectors 
and  assume  that  its  interests  will  invariably  be  well 
guarded,  would  be  as  cruel  as  was  the  assumption 
that  a woman  rendered  legally  and  economically 
helpless  and  delivered  over  to  a husband  or  other 


126  Concerning  Women 

male  guardian,  was  sure  of  humane  treatment.  No 
human  being,  man,  woman,  or  child,  may  safely  be 
entrusted  to  the  power  of  another;  for  no  human  be- 
ing may  safely  be  trusted  with  absolute  power.  It 
is  fair,  therefore,  that  in  the  case  of  those  whose 
physical  or  mental  immaturity  renders  them  com- 
paratively helpless,  there  should  be  a watchful  third 
person  who  from  the  vantage-point  of  a disinterested 
neutrality  may  detect  and  stop  any  infringement  of 
their  rights  by  their  guardians,  be  they  parents  or 
other  people.  Here  then,  is  a legitimate  office  for  the 
community:  to  arbitrate,  in  the  interest  of  justice, 
between  children  and  their  guardians. 

But  the  community  has  a more  direct  and  less  dis- 
interested concern  in  the  welfare  of  children:  every 
child  is  a potential  power  for  good  or  ill;  what  its 
children  become,  that  will  the  community  become. 
It  is  knowledge  of  this  that  prompts  the  establish- 
ment of  public  schools  and  colleges,  and  all  the 
manifold  associational  activities  intended  to  pro- 
mote the  physical  and  spiritual  welfare  of  children. 
It  is  back  of  the  mothers’  pension  system,  which  is 
properly,  as  the  Children’s  Bureau  insists,  a system 
of  assistance  for  children.  From  all  this  activity  it 
is  only  a step  to  the  assumption  by  the  community 


Woman  and  Marriage  127 

of  entire  responsibility  for  the  upbringing  and 
education  of  every  child.  This  idea  has  some  ad- 
vocates; it  is  a perfectly  logical  corollary  of  the 
modern  conception  of  the  child’s  relation  to  the  com- 
munity. Yet  it  invites  a wary  and  conditional  ac- 
ceptance. It  is  fair  that  the  community  should 
assume  the  burden  of  the  child’s  support  and  edu- 
cation, particularly  so  long  as  the  community  sanc- 
tions an  economic  system  which  makes  this  burden 
too  heavy  for  the  great  majority  of  parents,  and  a 
political  system  which  may  force  male  children  to 
sacrifice  their  lives  in  war  as  soon  as  parents  have 
completed  the  task  of  bringing  them  up.  But  the 
advisibility  of  accomplishing  this  purpose  through 
the  substitution  of  institutionalized  care  for  parental 
care  is  more  than  a little  doubtful ; for  to  institution- 
alize means  in  great  degree  to  mechanize.  To  es- 
tablish such  a system  and  make  it  obligatory,  would 
be  to  remove  many  children  from  the  custody  of 
parents  entirely  unfitted  to  bring  them  up;  but  it 
would  likewise  involve  the  removal  of  many  chil- 
dren from  the  custody  of  parents  eminently  well 
fitted  for  such  a responsibility.  It  would  imply  an 
assumption  that  the  people  who  might  be  engaged 
to  substitute  for  parents  would  be  better  qualified 


128  Concerning  Women 

for  their  task  than  the  parents  themselves;  and  such 
an  assumption  would  be  dangerous  so  long  as  the 
work  of  educators  continues  to  be  as  little  respected 
and  as  poorly  paid  as  it  now  is.  Moreover,  so 
long  as  society  remains  organized  in  the  exploiting 
State,  the  opportunity  to  corrupt  young  minds  and 
turn  out  rubber-stamp  patriots  would  be  much 
greater  than  that  which  is  now  afforded  by  the  pub- 
lic school  system,  whose  influence  intelligent  parents 
are  sometimes  able  to  neutralize. 

Perhaps  the  best  argument  against  such  a system 
is  that  it  would  not  work.  If  experience  teaches 
anything,  it  is  that  what  the  community  undertakes 
to  do  is  usually  done  badly.  This  is  due  in  part  to 
the  temptation  to  corruption  that  such  enterprises 
involve,  but  even  more,  perhaps,  to  the  lack  of  per- 
sonal interest  on  the  part  of  those  engaged  in  them. 
Those  people  who  advocate  bringing  up  children  in 
institutions  do  not  take  into  account  the  value  of 
parental  interest  in  the  child ; nor  do  they  respect  the 
parental  affection  which  would  cause  many  parents 
to  suffer  keenly  if  they  were  forced  to  part  with  their 
children.  The  family  is  by  no  means  always  the 
best  milieu  for  young  people;  but  before  we  seek  to 
substitute  a dubious  institutionalism,  it  would  be 


Woman  and  Marriage  129 

wise  to  ascertain  whether  the  change  is  imperative. 
In  a matter  which  touches,  as  this  one  does,  the  most 
profound  human  instincts,  there  is  need  to  observe 
Lord  Falkland’s  dictum  that  “where  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  change,  it  is  necessary  not  to  change.”  As 
I have  shown  in  the  preceding  chapter,  parents  are 
at  present  under  heavy  economic  handicaps  in  dis- 
charging their  parental  duties,  handicaps  which  not 
only  render  those  duties  a heavy  burden,  but 
lengthen  inordinately  the  period  for  which  they  must 
be  undertaken.  Until  those  handicaps  are  removed, 
it  will  not  be  fair  to  say  that  the  family  is  a failure; 
and  until  they  are  removed,  we  may  be  certain  that 
any  other  institution  charged  with  the  care  of  the 
young  will  be  a failure,  for  it  will  be  filled  with  peo- 
ple who  are  there  less  because  of  their  understand- 
ing of  children  and  their  peculiar  fitness  to  rear 
them,  than  because  such  work  offers  an  avenue  of 
escape  from  starvation. 

These  same  considerations  apply  to  the  argument 
that  the  rearing  of  children  should  be  institutional- 
ized in  order  to  emancipate  women  from  the  im- 
memorial burden  of  “woman’s  work.”  There  is  a 
simpler  way  of  dealing  with  this  problem,  a way 
which  eliminates  an  element  that  dooms  to  failure 


130  Concerning  Women 

any  scheme  of  human  affairs  in  which  it  is  involved, 
namely:  the  element  of  coercion.  To  contend  that 
all  mothers  should  be  forced  to  devote  themselves  ex- 
clusively to  the  rearing  of  children,  or  that  they 
should  be  forcibly  relieved  of  this  responsibility,  is 
to  ignore  the  right  of  the  individual  to  free  choice  in 
personal  matters.  There  is  no  relation  more  inti- 
mately personal  than  that  of  parents  to  the  child 
they  have  brought  into  the  world ; and  there  is  there- 
fore no  relationship  in  which  the  community  should 
be  slower  to  interfere.  This  is  a principle  univer- 
sally recognized:  the  community  at  present  inter- 
feres only  when  the  interest  of  the  child,  or  that  of 
the  community  in  the  child,  is  obviously  suffering. 
The  emancipation  of  women  by  no  means  necessi- 
tates the  abandonment  of  this  principle.  It  neces- 
sitates nothing  more  than  a guarantee  to  women  of 
free  choice  either  to  undertake  themselves  the  actual 
work  of  caring  for  their  children,  or  to  delegate  that 
work  to  others.  There  is  nothing  revolutionary 
about  this:  well-to-do  parents  have  always  exer- 
cised this  choice.  In  mediaeval  Europe  people  of 
the  upper  classes  regularly  sent  their  children  to  be 
brought  up  by  other  people,  and  took  the  children  of 
other  people  into  their  own  houses.  In  Renaissance 


Woman  and  Marriage  131 

Italy  the  wealthy  urban  dwellers,  almost  as  soon  as 
their  children  were  born,  sent  them  out  of  the  plague- 
infested  cities  to  nurse  with  peasants.  In  modern 
times  people  who  can  afford  it  often  place  their 
children  in  boarding  schools  at  an  early  age,  and 
keep  them  at  home  only  during  vacations — when 
they  do  not  place  them  in  camps.  Under  a system 
of  free  economic  opportunity  all  people,  instead  of 
a few,  would  have  this  alternative  to  rearing  their 
children  at  home,  for  they  would  all  be  able  to  af- 
ford it.  Even  under  the  present  economic  order 
it  would  be  possible  if  the  system  of  children’s 
assistance  were  extended  to  include  every  child, 
whether  the  parents  were  living  or  not.  But  under 
a system  of  free  opportunity  there  would  be  greater 
certainty  that  the  child  would  not  suffer  through 
separation  from  its  parents;  for  the  paid  educator 
would  be  in  his  position  because  it  interested  him. 
If  it  did  not,  he  would  take  advantage  of  the  oppor- 
tunity, freely  open  to  him,  to  do  something  that  did. 

So  long  as  responsibility  for  the  care  and  support 
of  children  continues  to  be  vested  in  the  parents,  so 
long,  for  the  sake  of  the  child,  will  it  be  the  duty 
of  society  to  insist  that  parents  shall  not  neglect  this 
responsibility.  But  when  society  had  renounced 


132  Concerning  Women 

all  claim  to  regulate  the  affairs  of  married  people, 
it  would  content  itself  with  holding  all  parents, 
married  or  unmarried,  jointly  liable  for  the  support 
and  care  of  their  children.  If  the  parents  were 
married,  then  the  apportioning  of  this  burden  be- 
tween them  would  be  arranged  by  mutual  agree- 
ment, and  the  community’s  only  interest  in  the  con- 
tract would  be  that  of  arbiter  in  case  of  a dispute 
between  the  parties,  precisely  as  in  case  of  other 
contracts.  To  assume  that  the  community’s  inter- 
est in  children  justifies  its  claim  to  “preserve  the 
home”  by  making  marriage  indissoluble  or  dissolu- 
ble only  under  humiliating  conditions,  is  to  confuse 
issues.  The  practice  of  perpetuating  marriage 
merely  for  the  sake  of  children  defeats  its  own  end ; 
-for  it  is,  far  from  being  good  for  children,  likely  to 
be  injurious  to  them.  It  condemns  them  to  be 
brought  up  in  what  Mr.  Shaw  has  well  called  a 
little  private  hell.  For  the  home,  as  other  critics 
than  Mr.  Shaw  have  pointed  out,  is  a proper  place 
for  children  only  when  it  provides  harmonious  con- 
ditions for  their  development;  and  harmony  is  not 
characteristic  of  homes  where  mutual  love  and  confi- 
dence no  longer  exist  between  the  parents.  The  de- 
mand that  the  freedom  and  happiness  of  parents 


Woman  and  Marriage  133 

shall  be  sacrificed  to  the  so-called  interest  of  the 
child  is  in  reality  a demand  that  injustice  shall  be 
done  one  person  for  the  sake  of  another;  and  where 
this  demand  is  effective  it  serves  no  end  but  that  of 
frustration  and  discord,  as  might  be  expected.  It  is 
far  better,  as  modern  society  is  coming  to  realize,  for 
the  community  to  content  itself  with  insisting  upon 
the  discharge  of  parental  responsibility,  without 
prescribing  too  minutely  the  conditions  under  which 
it  shall  be  done. 

It  is  not,  perhaps,  so  much  a concern  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  home  that  makes  people  afraid  of 
divorce,  as  it  is  for  other  time-honoured  concepts; 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  idea  that  marriage  is  a 
sacrament,  that  it  is  made  in  heaven  and  is  there- 
fore indissoluble  in  this  world.  Curiously  enough, 
this  idea  of  the  essential  holiness  and  consequent  in- 
dissolubility of  the  marriage-bond  has  coexisted  in 
Christian  society  with  the  most  cold-blooded  prac- 
tice of  marrying  for  convenience,  for  money,  for 
social  prestige,  for  place  and  power,  for  everything 
that  ignores  or  negates  the  spiritual  element  in  sex- 
ual union.  The  marriage  arranged  for  social  or 
mercenary  reasons  by  the  families  of  the  contracting 
parties,  who  might  not  even  meet  before  the  wedding- 


134  Concerning  Women 

day,  was  as  sacred  as  if  it  had  been  founded  upon 
an  intimate  acquaintance  and  tender  passion  be- 
tween them.  Thus  was  utilitarianism  invested  with 
a spurious  holiness.  Small  wonder  that  a medi- 
aeval court  of  love  denied  the  possibility  of  roman- 
tic attachment  between  husband  and  wife.  The 
Church,  to  be  sure,  introduced  the  principle  of  free 
consent  of  the  contracting  parties ; but  so  long  as  the 
subjection  of  women  endured,  there  could  be  little 
more  than  a perfunctory  regard  for  this  principle. 
There  can  be  no  real  freedom  of  consent  when  the 
alternative  to  an  unwelcome  marriage  is  the  cloister 
or  lifelong  celibacy  at  the  mercy  of  relatives  whose 
wishes  and  interests  one  has  defied,  in  a society 
where  to  be  unmarried  is,  for  a woman,  to  be  nobody. 
A son,  because  of  the  greater  independence  that  his 
sex  gave  him,  might  safely  exercise  some  degree  of 
choice  in  marrying.  A daughter  might  safely  exer- 
cise none.  As  women  have  become  more  independ- 
ent, and  their  economic  opportunities  have  increased, 
consent  has  become  more  closely  related  to  inclina- 
tion, and  in  many  places,  notably  the  United  States, 
it  is  actually  dependent  upon  inclination;  1 but 


1 In  countries  where  the  custom  of  dowry  persists  the  parents  are 
obviously  in  a position  to  exact  a great  degree  of  regard  for  their 


Woman  and  Marriage  135 

while  women  remain  at  an  economic  disadvantage  it 
is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the  motives  behind  in- 
clination and  consent  will  always  be  entirely  free 
from  an  ignoble  self-interest. 

So  long  as  woman’s  economic  and  social  welfare 
was  bound  up  with  marriage,  indissoluble  marriage 
undeniably  offered  her  a certain  kind  of  protection. 
It  did  not,  as  I have  remarked,  protect  her  from 
cruelty  and  infidelity  on  the  part  of  her  husband; 
but  it  generally  assured  her  of  a living  and  a re- 
spected position  in  society — that  is,  so  long  as  she 
violated  none  of  the  conventional  taboos  against  her 
sex.  Even  now  the  chivalrous  man  often  feels  that 
he  must  endure  an  unhappy  marriage  rather  than 
cause  his  wife  to  incur  the  economic  and  social  con- 
sequences of  divorce.  He  generally  feels  that  her 
chance  of  finding  another  husband  to  support  her 
would  be  considerably  worse  than  his  of  getting  an- 
other wife  to  support;  a feeling  which,  considering 
the  relative  desirability  of  supporting  and  being 
supported,  will  be  justified  so  long  as  it  is  considered 

wishes,  more  particularly  where  economic  opportunity  is  no  longer 
plentiful.  In  this  country,  where  abundance  of  free  land  made  the 
support  of  a family  comparatively  easy  and  secure,  marriage  early 
became  a matter  to  be  arranged  by  the  contracting  parties.  In 
modern  France,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  still  largely  a matter  to  be 
arranged  between  families. 


136  Concerning  Women 

tolerable  for  women  to  be  an  economic  dead  weight 
on  the  shoulders  of  men. 

in 

The  sanctions  of  monogamic  marriage  have  been 
enforced  on  women  only.  The  Christian  Church, 
after  some  indecision,  finally  decided  that  indis- 
soluble monogamy  was  the  only  allowable  form  of 
marriage;  and  in  theory  it  exacted  from  man  and 
woman  the  same  faithfulness  to  the  marriage-vows. 
Practically,  of  course,  it  did  no  such  thing.  Being 
dominated  by  men,  it  eventually  came  to  condone 
the  sexual  irregularities  of  men,  if  it  did  not  sanc- 
tion them;  but  sexual  irregularity  in  the  subject 
sex  continued  to  be  both  theoretically  and  practically 
intolerable.  Woman  became  the  repository  of 
morality  in  a society  which  regarded  morality  as 
chiefly  a matter  of  sex.  But  since  she  was  at  the 
same  time  the  means  of  satisfying  those  sexual  needs 
which  Christianity  disparaged,  she  also  bore  the 
brunt  of  social  displeasure  at  violation  of  the  ascetic 
creed.  Womankind,  as  I have  already  remarked, 
was  divided  into  two  classes:  the  virtuous  wives  and 
cloistered  virgins  who  embodied  Christian  morals; 


Woman  and  Marriage  137 

and  those  unfortunate  social  outcasts  who  sold  their 
bodies  to  gratify  un-Christian  desires.  The  pros- 
titute, the  “companion”  of  the  Greeks,  who  had  been 
in  the  Greek  world  the  only  educated  woman,  the 
only  woman  who  enjoyed  comparative  freedom,  be- 
came in  the  Christian  world  a social  outcast,  reviled 
and  persecuted,  a convenient  scapegoat  for  man’s 
sins  of  the  flesh,  who  atoned  vicariously  by  her 
misery  for  his  failure  to  live  up  to  the  Christian 
ideal  of  sexual  purity.  Nothing  reflects  more  dis- 
credit upon  the  dominance  of  the  male  under  Chris- 
tianity than  the  fact  that  he  took  advantage  of  the 
economic  helplessness  which  forced  millions  of 
women  to  sell  their  sex  for  a living,  and  then  perse- 
cuted them  outrageously  because  he  had  outrage- 
ously mistreated  them.  For  prostitution,  however 
much  it  may  reflect  upon  the  morality  and,  more 
especially,  upon  the  taste,  of  men,  has  nothing' 
whatever  to  do  with  the  morality  of  women.  It  is, 
with  women,  a question  of  economics,  purely  and 
simply.  The  man  who  buys  gratification  of  his 
sexual  desire  has  at  least  an  option  in  the  matter; 
he  will  not  starve  if  he  abstains ; but  the  woman  who 
sells  her  body  indiscriminately  to  any  man  who  will 
buy,  does  so  because  her  need  to  earn  a living  for 


138  Concerning  Women 

herself  or  her  family  forces  her  to  do  violence  to  her 
natural  selective  sexual  disposition. 

This  economic  pressure  has  been  strikingly  illus- 
trated in  Central  Europe  since  the  war,  where  thou- 
sands of  women  of  gentle  breeding  have  been  liter- 
ally driven  to  the  streets  by  the  compelling  scourge 
of  want.  The  men  upon  whom  these  women  in 
normal  times  would  have  depended  for  a living  had 
been  either  killed  or  incapacitated  in  the  war,  or 
their  power  to  earn  had  disappeared  in  the  economic 
collapse  which  followed.  When  men,  in  a society 
so  organized  as  to  give  them  an  economic  advantage 
over  women,  can  no  longer  earn  enough  to  maintain 
their  dependents  even  at  the  subsistence-level,  the 
chance  of  women,  for  the  most  part  untrained  to 
breadwinning,  to  do  so  will  be  poor  indeed.  Under 
such  circumstances  the  woman  thrown  on  her  own 
resources  may,  through  some  extraordinary  stroke 
of  luck,  find  a way  to  self-sufficiency  through  la- 
bour; but  more  often  she  is  obliged,  after  her  posses- 
sions have  been  disposed  of,  to  take  refuge  from 
starvation  by  selling  the  only  marketable  commodity 
that  is  left  her — her  sex.  Of  course  there  is  the  al- 
ternative of  starvation,  which  for  herself  she  may 
choose;  but  if  this  choice  would  involve  starvation 


Woman  and  Marriage  139 

for  her  children  or  other  dependents  she  is  likelier  to 
choose  prostitution,  precisely  as  so  many  German 
and  Austrian  mothers  and  daughters  have  done. 
Mrs.  O’Shaughnessy’s  little  story  of  Vienna  after 
the  war,  “Viennese  Medley,”  depicts  a situation 
which  is  not  untypical.  A middle-class  Viennese 
family  which  had  enjoyed  a mediocre  prosperity  be- 
fore the  war,  is  suffering,  with  all  that  suffering  city, 
from  the  nightmare  of  want  that  followed  a savage 
peace.  In  the  background,  unspoken  of,  the  only 
ray  of  hope  across  the  bleakness  of  their  extremity, 
moves  the  sister  who  sells  her  beauty  to  foreign  offi- 
cials and  native,  war-made  millionaires.  It  is  she 
who,  when  the  young  half-brother  is  struck  by  the 
dreaded  plague  of  tuberculosis,  sends  him  to  the 
mountains  and  health.  It  is  she  who  helps  the 
sister-in-law  to  establish  herself  in  trade,  after  the 
brilliant  young  surgeon,  her  brother,  has  come  back 
a nervous  ruin  from  the  war.  It  is  she  who  buries, 
with  decent  ceremony,  the  child  of  a sister  whose 
husband,  once  a distinguished  professor,  is  now 
able  to  do  little  more  than  starve  with  his  numerous 
family.  She  even  saves  from  want  the  young  noble- 
man whom  she  loves,  and  his  family  as  well.  Not 
every  woman  who  has  sold  herself  in  stricken  Eu- 


140  Concerning  Women 

rope  could  command  so  high  a price,  but  there  is  no 
doubt  that  many  of  them  stood  between  their  suffer- 
ing families  and  death. 

War  releases  all  that  is  brutal  in  man,  and  places 
woman  in  a peculiarly  helpless  position;  therefore 
it  is  a prolific  immediate  source  of  prostitution. 
But  the  ultimate  and  permanent  source  is  the  source 
of  war  itself,  the  economic  exploitation  of  man  by 
man.  So  long  as  society  is  organized  to  protect 
the  exploiter,  so  long  will  peace  be  an  incessant 
struggle — for  more  wealth  with  the  privileged 
classes;  for  existence  with  the  exploited  masses — 
and  war  will  be,  as  it  has  always  been,  merely  a final 
explosion  of  the  struggling  forces.  So  long  as  hu- 
man beings  may  starve  in  the  midst  of  plenty,  so 
long  will  woman  be  under  temptation  to  sell  the  use 
of  her  body.  She  may  prostitute  herself  because 
she  has  literally  no  other  way  to  get  a living;  she 
may  do  so  in  order  to  eke  out  an  insufficient  wage; 
she  may  do  so  because  prostitution  seems  to  offer  a 
relief  from  hopeless  drudgery;  she  may  do  so  be- 
cause she  has  made  what  the  world  calls  a misstep 
and  is  cut  off  thereby  from  respectability  and  the 
chance  to  earn  a decent  living ; or  she  may  prostitute 
herself  legally,  in  marriage,  as  women  have  been 


Woman  and  Marriage  141 

forced  to  do  from  time  immemorial.  In  every  case 
there  is  one  motive  force,  and  that  motive  force  is 
economic  pressure,  which  bears  hardest  upon  women 
because  of  the  social,  educational,  and  economic  dis- 
advantages from  which  they  are  forced  to  suffer  in  a 
world  dominated  by  men.  No  amount  of  masculine 
chivalry  has  ever  mitigated  this  evil,  and  no  amount 
ever  will;  for  chivalry  is  not  compulsory,  while  pros- 
titution is.  No  amount  of  exhortation,  no  amount 
of  devoted  labour  on  the  part  of  reformers  will 
touch  it;  for  it  is  not  a question  of  morality. 
No  amount  of  persecution — of  arrests,  of  man- 
handling, of  night-courts,  public  insult,  fine  and 
imprisonment — will  check  it,  for  the  necessity 
which  prompts  it  is  too  imperious  to  be  balked  by 
the  uncomprehending  guardians  of  public  decency. 
The  peril  of  this  necessity  threatens  all  womankind; 
one  turn  of  fortune’s  wheel  may  bring  its  stark 
aspect  before  the  eyes  of  the  most  sheltered  of 
women.  It  is  the  sheltered  women,  indeed,  who 
are  peculiarly  in  danger;  those  women  whose  prepar- 
ation for  the  struggle  to  wrest  a living  from  eco- 
nomic injustice  has  consisted  in  waiting  for  men  to 
marry  and  support  them.  The  parent  who,  in  a 
world  where  celibacy  and  prostitution  are  on  the  in- 


142  Concerning  Women 

crease,  fails  to  give  a girl  child  education  or  train- 
ing which  will  enable  her  to  get  her  living  by  her 
own  efforts,  forces  her  to  take  a dangerous  risk;  for 
the  woman  who  is  brought  up  in  the  expectation  of 
getting  her  living  by  her  sex  may  ultimately  be 
driven  to  accept  prostitution  if  she  fails  to  find  a 
husband,  or,  having  found  one,  loses  him. 

There  is  only  one  remedy  for  prostitution,  and 
that  remedy  is  economic  freedom — freedom  to  labour 
and  to  enjoy  what  one  produces.  When  women 
have  this  freedom  there  will  be  no  more  prostitution; 
for  no  woman  will  get  a living  by  doing  violence  to 
her  deep-rooted  selective  instinct  when  opportunities 
are  plentiful  and  a little  labour  will  yield  an  ample 
living.  There  may  still  be  women  who  are  sexually 
promiscuous;  but  there  is  a vast  gulf  between  pro- 
miscuity and  prostitution:  the  sexually  promiscuous 
woman  may  choose  her  men ; the  prostitute  may  not. 
It  is  the  abysmal  gulf  between  choice  and  necessity. 

iv 

Marriage,  illegitimacy  and  prostitution  are  so 
closely  related,  as  social  problems,  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  draw  firm  lines  of  demarcation  between 


Woman  and  Marriage  143 

them.  The  unlegalized  union — which  is  betrayed 
by  illegitimate  birth — may  be  a marriage  in  all  but 
law;  the  legalized  marriage  may  be  merely  a respec- 
table form  of  prostitution;  prostitution  may  take 
the  form  of  a more  or  less  permanent  union  which 
may  even  assume  the  dignity  of  a true  marriage. 
Illegitimacy,  marriage,  and  prostitution  do  not  exist 
independently;  they  exist  in  relation  to  one  another 
and  are  often  confused  in  people’s  minds — as  when 
it  is  assumed  that  all  mistresses  are  essentially  har- 
lots. They  are  the  three  faces  of  mankind’s  disas- 
trous attempt  to  impose  arbitrary  regulation  upon 
the  unruly  and  terrifying  force  of  sex;  they  form  a 
triptych  of  which  the  central  panel  is  institutional- 
ized marriage  and  the  other  panels  the  two  chief 
aspects  of  its  failure.  The  title  might  appropriately 
be  “The  Martyrdom  of  Woman.” 

Experience  has  amply  proved  that  as  individual- 
ism progresses,  it  becomes  increasingly  difficult  to 
impose  upon  people  more  than  an  appearance  of 
conformity  in  sexual  matters.  Society  can  not  really 
regulate  anything  so  essentially  personal  and  pri- 
vate in  its  nature  as  the  sexual  relation:  it  can  only 
take  revenge  upon  its  natural  result — and  thereby 
encourage  the  prevention  of  that  result  by  artificial 


144  Concerning  Women 

means.  For  every  unmarried  mother  who  is  perse- 
cuted by  society,  there  are  ten  unmarried  women  who 
escape  the  social  consequences  of  an  unauthorized 
sexual  relation.  For  every  faithful  husband  there 
is  another  who  deceives  his  wife  with  other  women; 
nor  are  wedded  wives  by  any  means  always  faithful 
to  their  marriage  vows.  There  are  people  who  live 
together  in  the  sexual  uncleanness  of  loveless  mar- 
riages ; and  there  are  those  who  live  purely  in  extra- 
legal  union.  The  sexual  impulse  is  too  variable 
and  too  imperious  to  be  compressed  into  a formula. 

Christian  society,  as  I have  remarked,  early  sur- 
rendered its  uncompromising  asceticism  and  settled 
down  to  an  easy  acceptance  of  the  mere  appearance 
of  conventional  sexual  virtue — that  is,  so  far  as  men 
were  concerned.  Women,  as  inferior  and  evil  be- 
ings,  who,  incongruously  enough,  at  the  same  time 
embodied  Christian  morality,  must  naturally  be 
under  the  rigid  surveillance  of  their  male  tutors,  and 
no  deviation  from  established  rules  might  be  al- 
lowed them.  Thus  worldly  motives  in  marrying 
might  be  united  with  sacramental  monogamy;  for 
the  man  might  avail  himself  of  extra-marital  union 
as  a safety-valve  for  the  emotional  needs  to  which 
marriage  gave  no  scope.  The  needs  of  the  woman 


Woman  and  Marriage  145 

were  not  considered,  save  when  savage  punishment 
was  visited  upon  their  illicit  satisfaction.  Thus 
hypocrisy  and  deceit  were  tacitly  encouraged,  and 
the  monogamic  ideal  was  degraded;  and  countless 
generations  lived  a gigantic  social  lie  which  dis- 
torted and  perverted  their  spiritual  vision  as  only  an 
accepted  lie  can  distort  and  pervert  it. 

I do  not  mean  by  this  that  there  have  not  been 
millions  of  really  monogamous  marriages.  To  in- 
timate that  the  greater  sexual  freedom  allowed  men 
by  law  and  custom  has  led  all  men  into  licence  would 
be  as  stupid  as  to  assume  that  repression  and  sur- 
veillance have  kept  all  women  chaste.  But  the  in- 
stitution of  marriage,  in  Christian  society,  has 
represented  compromise,  and  the  fruit  of  compro- 
mise is  insincerity — such  insincerity,  for  example, 
as  the  Government  of  South  Carolina  shows  when 
it  forbids  divorce,  and  fixes  by  law  what  proportion 
of  his  estate  a man  may  leave  to  his  concubine. 

Any  people  which  wishes  to  attain  dignity  and 
seriousness  in  its  collective  life  must  resolve  to  cast 
aside  compromise  and  insincerity,  and  to  look  at  all 
questions — even  the  vexed  one  of  sex — squarely  and 
honestly.  The  person  who  would  do  this  has  first 
some  prepossessions  to  overcome:  he  must  forget 


146  Concerning  Women 

tradition  long  enough  to  appraise  institutionalized 
marriage  by  its  value  to  the  human  spirit;  he  must 
resolve  for  the  time  to  regard  men  and  women  as 
equally  human  beings,  entitled  to  be  judged  by  the 
same  standards,  and  not  by  different  sets  of  tradi- 
tional criteria;  and  he  must  put  away  fear  of  sex 
and  fear  of  autonomy.  If  he  can  do  these  things, 
he  may  be  able  to  look  clear-eyed  down  the  long 
vista  of  the  centuries  and  realize  the  havoc  that  has 
been  wrought  in  the  souls  of  men  and  women  by  a 
sexual  code  and  a system  of  marriage  based  on  a 
double  standard  of  spiritual  values  and  of  conduct. 
He  may  perceive  how  constant  tutelage  degrades  the 
human  spirit,  and  how  much  greater  would  be  the 
sum  of  human  joy  if  freedom  were  substituted  for 
coercion  and  regulation — if  men  and  women  were 
without  legal  power  to  harass  and  bedevil  one  an- 
other simply  because  the  State,  through  the 
marriage-bond,  allows  them  humiliating  rights  in 
one  another;  if  virginity  and  chastity  were  matters 
of  self-respect  and  taste,  instead  of  being  matters 
of  worldly  self-interest  to  women  and  unconcern  to 
men;  if  the  relations  between  the  sexes  were  based 
on  equality  and  regulated  only  by  affection  and  the 
desire  to  serve  and  give  happiness. 


Woman  and  Marriage  147 

The  modification  which  institutionalized  mar- 
riage has  been  undergoing  since  the  partial  emer- 
gence of  woman,  its  chief  victim,  have  been  in  the 
direction  of  equality  and  freedom.  The  relative 
ease  with  which  divorce  may  now  be  had  marks  a 
long  step  towards  recognition  of  marriage  as  a per- 
sonal rather  than  a social  concern;  and  so  does  the 
tendency  to  abolish  the  legal  disabilities  resulting 
from  the  marriage-bond.  Nothing  augurs  better 
for  the  elevation  of  marriage  to  a higher  plane  than 
the  growing  economic  independence  of  women  and 
the  consequent  improvement  in  the  social  position  of 
the  unmarried  woman;  for  only  when  marriage  is 
placed  above  all  considerations  of  economic  or  so- 
cial  advantage  will  it  be  in  a way  to  satisfy  the  high- 
est demands  of  the  human  spirit. 

But  the  emergence  of  women  has  had  another  sig- 
nificant effect,  namely:  an  increase  in  frankness 
concerning  extra-legal  sexual  relations,  if  not  in 
their  number.  Of  late  there  has  been  much  public 
discussion  of  the  wantonness  of  our  modern  youth; 
which,  being  interpreted,  means  the  disposition  of 
our  girls  to  take  the  same  liberty  of  indulgence  in 
pre-nuptial  sexual  affairs  that  has  always  been 
countenanced  in  boys.  This  tendency  is  an  entirely 


148  Concerning  Women 

natural  result  of  woman’s  increased  freedom.  The 
conditions  of  economic  and  social  life  have  under- 
gone revolutionary  change  in  the  past  half-century; 
and  codes  of  morals  always  yield  before  economic 
and  social  exigency,  for  this  is  imperious.  It  is  for 
this  reason,  as  Dr.  A.  Maude  Royden  has  acutely 
observed,  that  women  of  the  lower  classes  have  al- 
ways enjoyed  a certain  immunity  from  the  taboos 
that  reduced  women  of  the  middle  and  upper  classes 
to  virtual  slavery.  “If  among  the  poor,”  says  Dr. 
Royden,  “these  ‘protections’  have  been  dispensed 
with,  it  has  not  been  because  the  poor  have  thought 
either  better  or  worse  of  their  women,  but  merely 
because  they  are  too  poor  to  dispense  with,  their 
labour,  and  labour  demands  some  small  degree  of 
freedom.”  Labour  not  only  demands,  it  gives  free- 
dom. The  woman  who  is  economically  independent 
need  no  longer  observe  rules  based  on  male  domi- 
nance; hence  the  new  candour  in  woman’s  attitude 
towards  the  awe-inspiring  fetich  of  sex. 

If  there  is  about  this  attitude  an  element  of  bra- 
vado, akin  to  that  of  the  youth  who  thinks  it  clever 
and  smart  to  carry  a hip-pocket  flask,  it  bears  testi- 
mony, not  to  the  dangers  of  freedom,  but  to  the 
bankruptcy  of  conventional  morality.  The  worst 


Woman  and  Marriage  149 

effect  of  tutelage  is  that  it  negates  self-discipline,  and 
therefore  people  suddenly  released  from  it  are  al- 
most bound  to  make  fools  of  themselves.  The 
women  who  are  emerging  from  it,  if  they  have  not 
learned  to  substitute  an  enlightened  self-interest  for 
the  morality  of  repression,  are  certainly  in  danger 
of  carrying  sexual  freedom  to  dishevelling  extremes, 
simply  to  demonstrate  to  themselves  their  emancipa- 
tion from  unjust  conventions.  There  is  no  reason  to 
expect  that  women,  emerging  from  tutelage,  will 
be  wiser  than  men.  One  should  expect  the  contrary. 
It  is  necessary  to  grow  accustomed  to  freedom  before 
one  may  walk  in  it  sure-footedly.  “Everything,” 
says  Goethe,  “which  frees  our  spirit  without  increas- 
ing our  self-control,  is  deteriorating.”  This  so- 
called  wantonness,  this  silly  bravado,  simply  shows 
that  the  new  freedom  is  a step  ahead  of  the  self- 
discipline  that  will  eventually  take  the  place  of  sur- 
veillance and  repression.  It  would  not  be  so,  per- 
haps, if  girls  and  boys  had  ever  been  enlightened 
concerning  the  real  sins  of  sex,  and  their  true  conse- 
quences. Women,  in  the  past,  have  been  taught 
to  keep  virgin  or  chaste  for  the  sake  of  their 
reputations,  of  their  families,  of  their  chances  in  the 
marriage-market;  they  have  been  scared  into  chas- 


150  Concerning  Women 

tity  in  the  name  of  religion ; but  they  have  not  been 
taught  to  be  chaste  for  the  sake  of  the  spiritual 
value  of  chastity  to  themselves.  Men,  having  been 
expected  to  “sow  their  wild  oats,  have  been  taught 
to  sow  them  with  a certain  degree  of  circumspection. 
Girls  have  been  intimidated  by  pictures  of  the  social 
consequences  of  a misstep ; boys  have  been  warned  of 
the  physical  danger  involved  in  promiscuous  sex- 
ual relations.  This  may  not  have  been  the  invari- 
able preparation  of  youth  for  the  experiences  of 
sex;  but  it  has  unquestionably  been  the  usual  one, 
and  it  is  one  of  utter  levity  and  indecency. 

The  real  sins  of  sex  are  identical  for  men  and 
women ; and  they  differ  from  infractions  of  the  con- 
ventional moral  code  in  this  respect  among  others: 
that  they  do  not  have  to  be  found  out  in  order  to  be 
punished.  They  carry  their  punishment  in  them- 
selves, and  that  punishment  is  their  deteriorative 
effect  upon  the  human  spirit.  They  are  infractions 
of  spiritual  law;  and  there  is  this  significant  dis- 
tinction to  be  observed  between  spiritual  laws  and 
the  laws  of  men:  that  regulation  plays  no  part  in 
their  administration.  The  law  of  freedom  is  the 
law  of  God,  who  does  not  attempt  to  regulate  the  hu- 
man soul,  but  sets  instinct  there  as  a guide  and 


Woman  and  Marriage  151 

leaves  man  free  to  choose  whether  he  will  follow 
the  instinct  which  prompts  obedience  to  spiritual 
law,  or  the  desire  which  urges  disregard  of  it.  The 
extreme  sophistication  of  the  conventional  attitude 
towards  sex  has  dulled  the  voice  of  instinct  for 
countless  generations,  with  the  inevitable  result  of 
much  unnecessary  suffering  and  irreparable  spirit- 
ual loss. 

A healthy  instinct  warns  against  lightness  in 
sexual  relationships;  and  with  reason,  for  the  im- 
pulse of  sex  is  one  of  the  strongest  motive  forces  in 
human  development  and  human  action.  It  touches 
the  obscurest  depths  of  the  soul ; it  affects  profoundly 
the  functions  of  the  mind  and  the  imagination — 
can  not,  indeed,  be  dissociated  from  them.  The 
fact  that  it  is  also  strongly  physical  leads  to  mis- 
understanding and  disregard  of  its  relation  to  the 
mind  and  spirit;  a misunderstanding  and  disregard 
which  are  immensely  aggravated  in  a society  where 
woman,  because  of  her  inferior  position,  may  be 
used  for  the  gratification  of  physical  desire,  with  no 
consideration  of  her  own  desires  or  her  spiritual 
claims.  Prostitution,  for  example,  has  exerted  a 
most  deleterious  influence  on  the  attitude  of  men 
toward  sex  and  toward  women.  But  degradation 


152  Concerning  Women 

of  the  sex-impulse  is  inevitably  punished.  The 
sheerly  physical  indulgence  to  which  it  leads  pro- 
duces a coarsening  of  spiritual  fibre,  an  incapacity 
for  appreciation  of  spiritual  values.  Moreover,  it 
produces  a cleavage  between  passion  and  affection 
which  renders  impossible  the  highest  and  most  beau- 
tiful form  of  the  sexual  relation,  the  relation  in 
which  passion  and  affection  are  fused  in  a love 
which  offers  complete  understanding  and  fulfilment. 
It  is  to  this  fusion  (and  not  to  monogamy,  which, 
Spencer  thought,  developed  love)  that  we  owe  “the 
many  and  keen  pleasures  derived  from  music,  poe- 
try, fiction,  the  drama,  etc.,  all  of  them  having  for 
their  predominant  theme  the  passion  of  love.”  True 
monogamy,  the  product  of  this  highest  love,  is  not  a 
regulation  to  be  observed;  it  is  an  ideal  to  be  at- 
tained, and  it  will  not  be  attained  by  the  person  who 
fails  to  recognize  and  to  respect  the  spiritual  aspects 
of  the  sexual  relation. 

Nor  will  it  be  attained  by  the  person  who  mis- 
takes excitement  for  love,  and  who  flits  from  one 
temporary  attachment  to  another,  thinking  always 
to  find  the  beautiful  in  the  new.  Such  promiscuous 
philandering  not  only  precludes  depth  of  affection 
and  thus  renders  constancy  impossible ; it  also  blunts 


Woman  and  Marriage  153 

perception.  Its  effect  was  never  better  expressed 
than  by  Burns,  who  was  one  of  its  unhappy  victims. 

I waive  the  quantum  o’  the  sin, 

The  hazard  of  concealin’, 

But  och!  it  hardens  a’  within, 

And  petrifies  the  feelin’. 

This  is  the  penalty  of  levity  in  human  relations: 
that  it  petrifies  feeling.  One  pays  the  price  in 
spiritual  deterioration.  There  is  probably  no  more 
striking  testimony  to  this  than  the  first  part  of 
Goethe’s  “Faust.”  Consider  what  we  know  of  the 
nature  of  Goethe’s  relations  with  women;  and  then 
consider  the  spiritual  insensitivity,  the  failure  to 
perceive  and  draw  upon  the  inexhaustible  spiritual 
treasures  that  life  holds  in  store,  that  are  implied 
in  his  failure  to  devise  for  Faust,  brought  back  from 
the  brink  of  the  grave  at  cost  of  his  immortal  soul, 
any  more  animating  employment  for  his  new-found 
youth  than  a low  intrigue  with  an  ignorant  peasant 
girl. 

I will  pass  by  the  contention  that  men  are  by  na- 
ture polygamous  and  women  monogamous;  for  it 
rests  on  evidence  created  by  a dual  standard  of  con- 
duct for  the  sexes.  Certain  women  of  independent 


154  Concerning  Women 

spirit  are  at  present  rather  conspicuously  engaged  in 
proving  themselves  not  merely  polygamous  but 
promiscuous;  and  a great  many  men  have  always 
proved  themselves  to  be  monogamous.  Probably 
human  beings  vary  in  respect  of  these  tendencies 
as  of  others.  All  people,  perhaps,  can  not  attain  the 
highest  plane  in  love,  either  for  want  of  capacity  or 
of  opportunity;  nor  can  all  people  conform  to  a 
single  mode  of  conduct.  But  all  people  can  attain 
sincerity  in  sexual  relations,  and  at  least  a certain 
degree  of  self-knowledge.  Sincerity,  self-knowl- 
edge, respect  for  oneself  and  for  other  people;  these 
are  essential  to  a genuine  ethic  of  sex;  and  they  are 
uncontemplated  by  the  sanctions  of  conventional 
morality.  Yet  the  person  who  violates  this  ethic 
sins  against  his  own  spirit,  which  is  to  sin  against 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  on  the  spiritual  plane  he  will 
be  punished. 

An  increase  in  extra-legal  relationships  does  not 
of  itself  imply  spiritual  retrogression.  It  might 
imply  instead  one  of  two  things,  or  both,  namely: 
an  increase  in  the  economic  obstacles  to  legal  mar- 
riage; or  a growing  disinclination  to  admit  an  affair 
so  personal  as  the  sex-relation  to  sanction  and  regu- 
lation by  people  whom  it  did  not  concern.  If  men 


Woman  and  Marriage  155 

and  women  were  economically  equal  and  indepen- 
dent, the  number  of  marriages  might  increase 
enormously;  on  the  other  hand,  institutionalized 
marriage  might  be  superseded  by  marriage  without 
legal  sanction,  which  before  the  birth  of  children 
might  not  be  even  known  or  recognized  as  marriage.1 
Free  people  would  probably  want  less  of  official 
interference  in  their  personal  affairs,  rather  than 
more.  But  for  those  who  wanted  to  avoid  the 
terrors  of  autonomy  there  would  still  be  marriage; 
and  for  those  who  wanted  to  walk  in  the  strait  and 
ennobling  way  of  freedom,  there  would  be  the  right 
to  love  without  official  permission,  and  to  bring 
forth  children  unashamed.  Those  who  wished  to 
sell  themselves  would  be  free  to  do  so  if  they  could 
find  buyers ; but  no  one  would  be  forced  to  live  by  vi- 
olating the  law  of  love  which  is  the  law  of  life. 
Freedom  implies  the  right  to  live  badly,  but  it  also 
implies  the  right  to  live  nobly  and  beautifully;  and 
for  one  who  has  faith  in  the  essential  goodness  of 
the  human  spirit,  in  the  natural  aspiration  towards 

1 Several  feminists  have  already,  indeed,  urged  public  sanction 
of  extra-legal  sexual  relations,  and  C.  Gasquoine  Hartley,  with  a 
genuinely  Teutonic  passion  for  order,  has  even  advocated  their  regu- 
lation by  the  State.  This  is  probably  impossible,  for  people  who 
choose  such  relationships  usually  do  so  to  escape  regulation. 


156  Concerning  Women 

perfection  which  flowers  with  touching  beauty  even 
in  the  bleak  soil  of  that  hardship,  degradation  and 
crime  to  which  injustice  condemns  the  mass  of  hu- 
manity— for  one  who  has  this  faith  in  the  human 
spirit,  there  can  be  no  question  what  its  ultimate 
choice  would  be. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  ECONOMIC  POSITION  OF  WOMEN 
I 

It  is  to  the  industrial  revolution  more  than  any- 
thing else,  perhaps,  that  women  owe  such  freedom 
as  they  now  enjoy;  yet  if  proof  were  wanting  of 
the  distance  they  have  still  to  cover  in  order  to  at- 
tain, not  freedom,  but  mere  equality  with  men,  their 
position  in  the  industrial  world  would  amply  supply 
it.  Men  in  industry  suffer  from  injustices  and 
hardships  due  to  the  overcrowding  of  the  labour- 
market.  Women  suffer  from  these  same  injustices 
and  hardships;  and  they  have  an  additional  handi- 
cap in  their  sex.  The  world  of  work,  embracing 
industry,  business,  the  professions,  is  primarily  a 
man’s  world.  Women  are  admitted,  but  not  yet  on 
an  equal  footing.  Their  opportunities  for  employ- 
ment are  restricted,  sometimes  by  law,  but  more 
often  by  lack  of  training;  and  their  remuneration 
as  wage-earners  and  salaried  workers  is  generally 
less  than  that  of  men.  They  have  to  contend  with 
traditional  notions  of  what  occupations  are  fitting 


158  Concerning  Women 

for  their  sex;  with  the  jealousy  of  male  workers; 
with  the  prejudices  of  employers;  and  finally  with 
their  own  inertia  and  their  own  addiction  to  tradi- 
tional concepts.  All  these  difficulties  are  immensely 
aggravated  by  the  keenness  of  the  competition  for 
work.  If  the  opportunity  to  work  were,  as  it  should 
be,  an  unimpeded  right  instead  of  a privilege  doled 
out  by  an  employer,  these  handicaps  of  women  would 
be  easily  overridden  by  the  demand  for  their  la- 
bour. I shall  discuss  this  point  more  fully  later 
on.  It  is  sufficient  here  to  note  that  when  the  war 
created  a temporary  shortage  of  labour,  women  were 
not  only  employed  in,  but  were  urged  in  the  name 
of  patriotism  to  enter,  occupations  in  which  until 
then  only  men  had  been  employed.  The  effect  of 
this  temporary  shortage  on  their  industrial  oppor- 
tunities affords  a hint  of  what  their  position  would 
be  if  the  glutting  of  the  labour-market  were  per- 
manently relieved.  A shortage  of  labour  means 
opportunity  for  the  worker,  male  or  female. 

Women  have  always  been  industrial  workers. 
Otis  T.  Mason  even  went  so  far  as  to  declare  that 
“All  the  peaceful  arts  of  today  were  once  woman’s 
peculiar  province.  Along  the  lines  of  industrialism 
she  was  pioneer,  inventor,  author,  originator.” 


Economic  Position  of  Women  159 

This  view  is  in  rather  striking  contrast  with  the 
contemptuous  derogation  which  has  been  for  a long 
time  current  in  European  civilization,  and  has 
found  expression  in  such  cutting  remarks  as  that 
of  Proudhon,  that  woman  “could  not  even  invent 
her  own  distaff.”  It  is  no  doubt  a fairer  view,  al- 
though it  is  probably  somewhat  exaggerated. 
There  is  certainly  no  valid  reason  to  suppose  that 
sex  is  a barrier  to  the  invention  and  improvement 
of  industrial  processes.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  un- 
deniable that  women  have  always  been  producers. 
Among  some  primitive  tribes,  indeed,  they  are  the 
only  industrialists,  the  men  occupying  themselves 
with  war  and  the  chase  or,  among  maritime  peo- 
ples, with  fishing.  The  modern  invasion  of  the  in- 
dustrial field  by  women  does  not,  then,  represent  an 
attempt  to  do  something  that  women  have  never  done 
before.  It  does  represent  an  attempt  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  new  conditions  created  by  the  industrial 
revolution. 

The  range  of  their  opportunities  has  been  con- 
siderably restricted  by  prejudices  arising  from  the 
traditional  sexual  division  of  labour  in  European 
society.  “In  the  developed  barbarism  of  Europe, 
only  a few  simple  household  industries  were  on  the 


160  Concerning  Women 

whole  left  to  women.”  1 It  was  natural,  then,  when 
women  followed  industry  into  the  larger  field  of 
machine-production,  that  it  should  be  assumed  that 
the  industries  in  which  they  might  fittingly  engage 
would  be  those  most  nearly  akin  to  the  occupations 
which  European  society  has  regarded  as  peculiarly 
feminine.  Before  the  World  War,  according  to 
the  Women’s  Bureau,  “over  seventy-five  per  cent  of 
all  women  engaged  in  manufacture  were  concen- 
trated in  the  textile  and  garment-making  indus- 
tries”; and  we  have  the  same  authority  for  the  state- 
ment that  “except  for  certain  branches  of  food- 
manufacture — such  as  flour  making  . . . women 
constitute  from  a third  to  two-thirds  of  the  working 
forces  in  the  industries  concerned  with  the  busi- 
ness of  clothing  and  feeding  both  the  fighting  and 
the  civilian  population.”  The  new  opportunities 
opened  up  by  the  exigency  of  the  war-period  widened 
considerably  the  scope  of  women’s  activity;  they 
were  employed  in  machine-shops  and  tool-rooms,  in 
steel-  and  rolling-mills,  in  instrument-factories,  in 
factories  manufacturing  sewing  machines  and  type- 
writers, in  utensil-factories,  in  plants  working  in 
rubber  and  leather,  in  wood- working  industries. 


1 Ellis:  Man  and  Woman.  5th  ed.  p.  14. 


Economic  Position  of  Women  161 

In  some  of  these  industries  women  continue  to 
be  employed.  In  others  they  were  discharged  to 
make  room  for  men  when  the  emergency  was  over. 
But  even  where  they  continue  to  be  employed  their 
opportunities  for  training  are  not  equal  to  those  of 
men.  The  Women’s  Bureau  in  1922  issued  a val- 
uable bulletin  on  “Industrial  Opportunities  and 
Training  for  Women  and  Girls.”  According  to 
this  bulletin,  the  war-experience  of  women  in  new 
employments  made  it  apparent  that  the  most  prom- 
ising future  for  craftswomen  in  these  fields  lies  in 
(a)  machine-shops  where  light  parts  are  made,  (b) 
wood-product  factories  where  assembling  and  finish- 
ing are  important  processes,  (c)  optical-  and  instru- 
ment-factories, (d)  sheet-metal  shops.  The  survey 
made  by  the  Bureau  to  discover  how  many  of  the 
country’s  industrial  training  schools  were  fitting 
women  for  these  trades  disclosed  the  fact  that  in 
nine  States  where  women,  because  of  industrial  con- 
ditions, are  most  in  need  of  training  for  machine- 
shop,  sheet-metal,  furniture,  or  optical  work,  they 
are  either  excluded  by  public  vocational  schools 
from  the  courses  in  such  works,  or  they  are  not 
encouraged,  as  men  are,  to  enter  those  courses.  In 
Ohio,  for  example,  women  were  enrolled  in  only 


162  Concerning  Women 

five  of  the  fifty-three  public  vocational  schools  re- 
porting, and  in  these  five  schools  they  were  taught 
dressmaking,  costume-design,  dress-pattern  making, 
embroidery,  power-machine  sewing,  and  pottery 
making.  Men  on  the  other  hand,  received  instruc- 
tion in  the  following  courses  which  women  needed: 
machine-shop  practice,  tool-making,  shop  mathe- 
matics, mechanical  drafting,  blue-print  reading, 
metallurgy,  pattern-making,  sheet-metal  work,  weld- 
ing, auto-mechanics  and  repair,  motor-cycle  me- 
chanics, gas  engineering,  cabinet-making  and  wood- 
working. Women  were  not  debarred  by  rule  or 
law  from  entering  these  courses,  but  they  were  not 
encouraged  to  do  so.  The  courses,  as  one  superin- 
tendent wrote,  were  “designed  for  men.”  The  sit- 
uation in  Ohio  is  more  or  less  the  same  as  that  in 
the  other  eight  States.  Women  are  either  not  ad- 
mitted to  vocational  courses  designed  to  prepare 
workers  for  the  industries  cited,  or  they  are  not  en- 
couraged to  enroll.  Yet,  as  the  Bureau  points  out, 
these  institutions  are  operated  at  the  expense  of  the 
taxpayers,  women  as  well  as  men,  and  their  equip- 
ment should  be  used  to  serve  women  as  well  as  men. 
“It  is  obvious,”  says  the  Bureau,  “that  the  public 
vocational  school  authorities,  with  few  exceptions, 


Economic  Position  of  Women  163 

think  of  trade  for  women  only  in  terms  of  dress- 
making and  millinery,  and  are  as  yet  quite  oblivious 
to  the  fact  that  these  trades,  except  in  certain  cloth- 
ing centers,  are  not  the  big  employers  of  woman 
labour,  nor  are  they  always  the  best  trades  at  which 
to  earn  a livelihood.  It  is  the  semi-public  school 
that  is  beginning  first  to  recognize  the  new  position 
which  woman  occupies  in  industry  as  a result  of  the 
war  and  is  opening  to  her  its  doors  and  guiding  her 
into  courses  leading  to  efficiency  in  the  new  occupa- 
tions.” 

This  blindness  of  the  school  authorities  to  the 
vocational  needs  of  women  goes  to  prove  how  strong 
is  the  force  of  traditional  prejudices.  The  making 
of  clothing  has  been  largely  in  the  hands  of  women 
for  so  long  that  even  in  cities  where  the  only  indus- 
tries employing  women  are  mechanical  or  wood- 
working, the  public  schools  offer  them  courses  in 
sewing  and  millinery.  Prepossession  does  not  yield 
all  at  once  to  established  fact.  If  women  can  make 
a permanent  place  for  themselves  in  their  new  oc- 
cupations, public  officials  will  eventually  come  to 
associate  them  with  these  occupations  and  follow 
the  lead  of  the  semi-public  schools  in  fitting  girls 
to  engage  in  them  on  an  equal  footing  with  boys. 


164  Concerning  Women 

But  it  will  take  time;  and  meanwhile  women  will 
continue  to  be  at  a disadvantage  in  entering  these 
occupations.  So  will  they  be  at  a disadvantage  in 
entering  any  occupation  where  they  have  not  before 
been  employed,  or  where  they  are  employed  only  in 
insignificant  numbers,  so  long  as  prejudice  or  con- 
servatism continues  to  debar  them,  and  the  neces- 
sary training  is  not  as  freely  available  to  them  as  it 
is  to  men. 

Above  all,  so  long  as  their  industrial  status  con- 
tinues to  be,  as  the  Women’s  Bureau  expresses  it, 
“subsidiary  to  their  home  status,”  they  can  never 
be  on  a really  secure  footing  in  the  industrial  world. 
While  employers  assume  that  all  male  workers  have 
families  to  support  and  that  all  female  workers  are 
in  industry  rather  through  choice  than  necessity  and 
may,  in  periods  when  work  is  slack,  fall  back  on 
the  support  of  male  relatives,  so  long  will  women 
be  the  first  workers  to  suffer  from  any  slowing  down 
of  industry.  This  was  strikingly  illustrated  dur- 
ing the  period  of  unemployment  which  succeeded 
the  intense  industrial  activity  made  necessary  by  the 
war,  when  women  were  discharged  in  great  numbers 
.to  make  room  for  men,  and  much  resentment  was 
voiced  against  their  retention  in  places  which  might 


Economic  Position  of  Women  165 

be  filled  by  men.  “Back  to  the  home,”  says  the 
Women’s  Bureau,  “was  a slogan  all  too  easily  and 
indiscriminately  flung  at  the  wage-earning  woman 
by  those  who  had  little  conception  of  the  causes 
which  forced  her  into  wage-earning  pursuits.”  In 
periods  of  industrial  depression  it  appears  to  be  the 
regular  practice  to  lay  off  the  married  women 
workers  first,  then  the  single  women,  and  the  men 
last. 

How  unjust  to  the  woman  worker,  and  how  little 
justified  by  actual  facts,  is  this  survival  of  the  idea 
that  woman’s  place  is  the  home,  has  been  shown 
through  investigations  undertaken  by  the  Women’s 
Bureau  and  other  agencies.  The  results  of  these 
investigations,  published  in  Bulletin  No.  30  of  the 
Women’s  Bureau,  show  that  the  woman  in  industry 
is  not  merely  working  for  pin-money,  as  thought- 
less people  assume,  but  that  she  is  more  often  not 
only  supporting  herself  on  her  inadequate  wage, 
but  contributing  materially  to  the  support  of  de- 
pendents. “Contributing  all  earnings  to  the  family 
fund,”  says  the  Bureau,  “is  a very  general  practice 
among  wage-earning  women.”  This  of  course 
means,  as  the  Bureau  remarks,  that  however  much 
or  little  her  contribution  may  mean  to  the  family, 


1 66  Concerning  Women 

for  the  woman  herself  it  means  a surrender  of  eco- 
nomic independence.  The  contrast  between  single 
men  and  single  women  in  this  respect  is  significant. 
In  an  investigation  conducted  among  workers  in 
the  shoe-making  industry  of  Manchester,  New 
Hampshire,  the  Bureau  found  that  “comparing 
single  men  and  women,  the  women  contributed  (to 
the  family  income)  more  extensively,  both  actually 
and  relatively.”  The  percentage  of  earnings  con- 
tributed by  sons  and  daughters  is  particularly  in- 
teresting. The  Bureau  found  that  “in  the  fami- 
lies with  per  capita  earnings  of  less  than  $500,  49.3 
per  cent  of  the  sons  and  71.6  per  cent  of  the  daugh- 
ters contributed  all  their  earnings,  while  in  families 
with  per  capita  earninigs  of  $500  or  more,  36.8  per 
cent  of  the  sons  and  53.4  per  cent  of  the  daughters 
contributed  all  earnings.”  When  one  remembers 
that  the  wage  paid  to  women  was  so  much  lower 
than  that  paid  to  men  that  the  Bureau  pronounced 
them  to  be  scarcely  comparable,  the  fact  that  “the 
daughters  contributed  a somewhat  larger  propor- 
tion of  the  family  earnings  than  did  the  sons”  takes 
on  added  significance.  The  sons  contributed  al- 
most as  much  in  actual  money  as  the  daughters, 
but  out  of  their  higher  wages  they  retained  some- 


Economic  Position  of  Women  167 

thing  for  themselves,  “thus  assuring  themselves  of  a 
degree  of  independence  and  an  opportunity  to  strike 
out  for  themselves  which  is  denied  the  daughters.” 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  women,  even  in  the  “eman- 
cipation” of  the  industrial  world,  are  continuing 
their  immemorial  self-sacrifice  to  the  family,  and 
that  it  is  not  the  married  woman  alone,  but  the 
single  woman  as  well,  who  makes  this  sacrifice. 
The  conditions  of  the  sacrifice  have  changed  with  the 
changes  in  industry,  but  the  sacrifice  continues. 
The  productive  labour  of  women  appears  to  be  quite 
as  indispensable  to  their  families  as  it  was  in  the 
days  when  they  spun  and  wove  and  sewed  and  baked 
at  home.  This  being  the  case,  there  is  obviously 
no  other  ground  than  prejudice  for  the  assumption 
that  men,  as  the  natural  providers,  should  have 
preference  in  the  labour-market.  According  to  the 
census  of  1920,  thirty-five  per  cent  of  the  men  in 
'the  country  are  single;  therefore  it  is  fair  to  assume 
that  thirty-five  per  cent  of  the  men  in  industry  are 
single.  Two-thirds  of  the  women  in  industry  are 
single,  but  the  available  figures  show  that  a much 
larger  percentage  of  these  women  than  of  single  men 
are  contributing  all  or  most  of  their  earnings  to  their 
families,  while  married  women  workers  are  con- 


168  Concerning  Women 

tributing  all  of  their  earnings.  In  view  of  these 
figures,  there  is  patent  injustice  in  the  assumption 
that  all  men  and  no  women  have  dependents  to 
support. 

So  is  there  injustice  in  the  assumption  that  women 
are  naturally  at  least  partly  dependent  on  male 
workers,  and  therefore  may  fairly  be  forced  to  accept 
a smaller  wage  than  men.  This  assumption  is  not 
only  grossly  unfair  to  the  woman  worker,  but  it 
does  not  tally  with  fact.  A fine  example  of  the  kind 
of  defence  for  the  practice  of  sweating  women 
workers  that  can  be  based  on  this  assumption  is 
quoted  by  the  Women’s  Bureau  from  an  unnamed 
commercial  magazine.  “Eighty-six  per  cent  of 
women  workers,”  runs  this  masterpiece  of  sophistry, 
“live  at  home  or  with  relatives.  [So,  in  all  likeli- 
hood, do  eighty-six  per  cent  of  male  workers.]  It 
is  immaterial  in  these  cases  whether  the  earnings  of 
each  measure  up  to  the  cost  of  living  scheduled  for 
a single  woman  living  alone,  so  that  the  theory  of 
the  need  of  a sufficient  wage  to  support  a single 
woman  living  alone  does  not  apply  to  eighty-six  per 
cent  of  the  entire  population  [sic]”  This  quota- 
tion, says  the  Bureau,  is  typical  of  the  attitude  of  the 
employer  who  pays  his  women  employees  less  than  a 


Economic  Position  of  Women  169 

living  wage  on  the  plea  that  they  live  at  home  and 
therefore  have  few  expenses.  It  is  equally  remark- 
able in  its  ruthless  disregard  of  the  just  claim 
of  the  woman  worker  to  the  same  share  in  the 
product  of  her  toil  that  the  male  worker  is  al- 
lowed; and  in  its  disregard  of  the  fact  that  so  long 
as  eighty-six  per  cent  of  women  workers  are  forced 
to  accept  a starvation-wage  because  they  live  at 
home,  the  other  fourteen  per  cent  who  do  not  live  at 
home  will  be  forced  by  the  pressure  of  competition 
to  accept  the  same  starvation-wage.  The  question 
how  this  fourteen  per  cent  will  eke  out  a living — 
whether  through  overwork,  begging  or  prostitution — 
does  not  of  course  concern  the  employer ; for  it  is  one 
of  the  striking  differences  between  chattel-slavery 
and  wage-slavery  that  the  owner  of  the  wage-slave 
is  under  no  obligation  to  keep  his  workers  from 
starving.  That  is,  presumably,  their  own  lookout. 

If  employers  are  not  given  to  concerning  them- 
selves with  this  question,  however,  communities  are. 
Thirteen  States  have  enacted  laws  fixing  a mini- 
mum wage  for  women,  three  have  fixed  minimum 
wages  in  specified  occupations,  one  has  fixed  a mini- 
mum wage  which  its  industrial  welfare  commission 
has  power  to  change,  and  nine  have  created  boards 


170  Concerning  Women 

or  commissions  with  power  to  fix  minimum  wage- 
rates.  It  may  be  noted  that  in  those  States  where 
the  rate  is  fixed  by  law,  it  has  not  responded  to  the 
rising  cost  of  living.  In  Utah  and  Arkansas,  for 
example,  the  minimum  wage  for  an  experienced 
woman  is  $7.50  a week.  There  is  constant  effort 
by  interested  individuals  and  organizations  to  get 
similar  laws  enacted  in  other  States,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  in  1923  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  declared  unconstitutional  the  minimum  wage- 
law  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  Such  efforts,  of 
course,  are  in  reality  efforts  to  secure  class-legisla- 
tion, as  are  all  attempts  to  secure  special  enact- 
ments designed  to  benefit  or  protect  women. 

Of  such  enactments  there  is  an  ever  increasing 
number.  So  rapidly  do  they  increase,  indeed,  that 
women  may  be  said  to  be  in  a fair  way  to  exchange 
the  tyranny  of  men  for  that  of  organized  uplift. 
They  are  sponsored  by  those  well-meaning  indi- 
viduals who  deplore  social  injustice  enough  to  yearn 
to  mitigate  its  evil  results,  but  do  not  understand  it 
well  enough  to  attack  its  causes;  by  women’s  or- 
ganizations whose  intelligence  is  hardly  commen- 
surate with  their  zeal  to  uplift  their  sex;  and  by 
men’s  labour-organizations  which  are  quite  frankly 


Economic  Position  of  Women  171 

4 ' 

in  favour  of  any  legislation  that  will  lessen  the 
chances  of  women  to  compete  with  men  in  the 
labour-market.1  Given  the  combined  suasion  of 
these  forces,  and  Jhe  inveterate  sentimentalism 
which  makes  it  hard  for  legislators  to  resist  any 
plea  on  behalf  of  “the  women'  and  children,”  al- 
most anything  in  the  way  of  rash  and  ill-considered 
legislation  is  possible,  and  even  probable.  There 
is  on  the  statute-books  of  the  various  States  an 
imposing  array  of  laws  designed  to  “protect” 
women  workers.  There  are  only  four  States  which 
do  not  in  some  way  limit  the  hours  of  work  for 
women;  there  are  eleven  which  limit  the  number  of 
successive  days  that  they  may  work;  fourteen  have 
fixed  the  amount  of  time  that  shall  be  allowed  them 

1 Katharine  Anthony  found  the  workmen  of  Germany  frankly  in 
favour  of  any  “protective”  legislation  that  would  hamper  German 
working  women  (“Feminism  in  Germany  and  Scandinavia”)  ; and 
the  Woman’s  Party  has  met  with  the  same  attitude  among  unions 
in  this  country.  Among  the  resolutions  passed  at  the  twenty-fifth 
convention  of  the  International  Moulders’  Union  of  North  America 
was  the  following : “Resolved,  that  the  decision  of  this  convention 
be  the  restriction  of  the  further  employment  of  child  and  woman 
labour  in  union  core  rooms  and  foundries,  and  eventually  the  elimi- 
nation of  such  labour  in  all  foundries  by  the  example  set  by  union 
foundries  in  the  uplifting  of  humanity.  . . . Resolved,  that  the  in- 
coming officers  be  directed  to,  either  by  themselvs  or  in  co-operation 
with  others  in  the  labour  movement,  give  their  best  thought  and 
effort  in  opposing  the  employment  of  female  and  child  labour  in 
jobs  recognized  as  men’s  employment. 


172  Concerning  Women 

for  their  midday  meal;  twelve  have  ruled  that  a 
woman  may  work  only  a given  number  of  hours 
without  a rest-period.  Sixteen  States  prohibit 
night-work  in  certain  industries  or  occupations ; two 
limit  her  hours  of  night-work  to  eight.  There  is 
also  a tendency  to  extend  to  women  special  protec- 
tion against  the  hazards  of  industry.  In  seventeen 
States  the  employment  of  women  in  mines  is  pro- 
hibited. Two  States  prohibit  their  employment  in 
any  industry  using  abrasives.  In  four  States  they 
are  not  allowed  to  oil  moving  machinery.  Three 
regulate  their  employment  in  core-making ; and  four 
regulate  the  amount  of  the  weight  that  they  may  be 
required  to  lift — the  maximum  ranging,  oddly 
enough,  from  fifteen  pounds  in  Ohio  and  Penn- 
sylvania to  seventy-four  pounds  in  Massachusetts. 
In  addition  to  those  regulations  which  prohibit 
women  from  working  in  certain  occupations  or  un- 
der certain  conditions,  “each  State,”  says  the 
Women’s  Bureau,  “has  many  laws  and  rulings 
which  prescribe  the  conditions  under  which  women 
should  work,  covering  such  matters  as  the  lifting 
of  weights,  provision  of  seats,  and  proper  provision 
for  sanitation  and  comfort.”  In  six  States,  indus- 
trial commissions  have  power  to  make  regulations 


Economic  Position  of  Women  173 

for  the  health  and  welfare  of  workers.  In  three, 
the  commissions  have  power  to  make  regulations  for 
women  and  minors  only,  and  in  one,  for  women, 
minors,  learners,  and  apprentices. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  thing  about  all  these 
multiform  regulations  governing  the  employment  of 
women  is  the  amount  of  misplaced  zeal  that  they 
denote.  “In  most  cases,”  says  the  Women’s  Bu- 
reau, “the  laws  which  prohibit  their  employment 
have  little  bearing  on  the  real  hazards  to  which  they 
are  exposed.  . . . Prohibiting  the  employment  of 
women  on  certain  dusty  processes  does  not  solve  the 
problem  of  any  industrial  disease  in  a community. 
Men  are  also  liable  to  contract  pulmonary  diseases 
from  exposure  to  dusts.  ...  It  is  very  possible 
that  under  the  guise  of  ‘protection’  women  may  be 
shut  out  from  occupations  which  are  really  less 
harmful  to  them  than  much  of  the  tedious,  heavy 
work  both  in  the  home  and  in  the  factory  which  has 
long  been  considered  their  special  province.  Safe 
standards  of  work  for  women  must  come  to  be  safe 
standards  for  men  also  if  women  are  to  have  an 
equal  chance  in  industry”  The  italics  are  mine. 
It  is  worth  mentioning  here  that  only  two  States 
prohibit  the  employment  of  women  in  the  lead- 


174  Concerning  Women 

industry,  which  so  far  is  the  only  one  that  has  been 
proved  more  harmful  to  women  than  to  men.  The 
mass  of  legislation  and  regulation  designed  to  pro- 
tect women  from  the  fatigues  and  hazards  of  in- 
dustry would  seem,  then,  to  have  been  animated  more 
by  chivalry  than  by  scientific  knowledge;  and  while 
chivalry  may  be  all  very  well  in  its  place,  it  can 
hardly  be  expected  to  solve  the  industrial  problem 
of  women. 

In  connexion  with  so-called  welfare-legislation, 
it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  women  and  children 
are  customarily  grouped  together  as  classes  requir- 
ing protection;  and  that  various  laws  affecting  their 
position  in  industry  have  been  sanctioned  by  the 
courts  as  being  for  the  good  of  the  race  and  there- 
fore not  to  be  regarded  as  class-legislation.  I Such 
decisions  certainly  would  appear  to  be  reasonable  in 
so  far  as  they  apply  to  children,  who  are  the  rising 
generation  of  men  and  women,  and  should  be  pro- 
tected during  their  immaturity.  But  they  can  be 
held  valid  as  they  affect  women  only  if  woman  is 
regarded  as  primarily  a reproductive  function. 
This  view,  apparently,  is  held  by  most  legislators, 
courts,  and  uplifters ; and  they  have  an  unquestion- 
able right  to  hold  it.  Whether,  however,  they  are 


Economic  Position  of  Women  175 

just  in  attempting  to  add  to  the  burdens  of  the  work- 
ing woman  by  imposing  it  upon  her  in  the  form  of 
rules  that  restrict  her  opportunities,  is  another  ques- 
tion. One  thing  is  certain:  if  discriminative  laws 
and  customs  are  to  continue  to  restrict  the  oppor- 
tunities of  women  and  hamper  them  in  their  under- 
takings, it  makes  little  difference  for  whose  benefit 
those  laws  and  customs  are  supposed  to  operate, 
whether  for  the  benefit  of  men,  of  the  home,  of  the 
race,  or  of  women  themselves;  their  effect  on  the 
mind  of  woman  and  her  opportunities,  will  be  the 
same.  While  society  discriminates  against  her  sex, 
for  whatever  reason,  she  can  not  be  free  as  an  in- 
dividual 

Should  nothing,  then,  be  done  to  protect  women 
from  the  disabilities  and  hazards  to  which  they  are 
subject  in  the  industrial  world?  Better  nothing, 
perhaps,  than  protection  which  creates  new  disabili- 
ties. Laws  which  fix  fewer  hours  of  work  for 
women  than  for  men  may  result  in  shortening  men’s 
hours  also  in  factories  where  many  women  are  em- 
ployed; but  they  may  result  in  the  substitution  of 
men — or  children — for  women  in  factories  where 
but  few  have  been  employed.  Laws  prohibiting 
night-work  may  reduce  the  chances  of  women  to  get 


176  Concerning  Women 

much-needed  employment,  and  may  sometimes  shut 
them  out  of  work  which  would  offer  higher  returns 
on  their  labour  than  anything  they  might  get  to  do 
during  the  day — as,  for  example,  night-work  in 
restaurants,  where  the  generous  tips  of  after-theatre 
patrons  add  considerably  to  the  earnings  of  waiters. 
Moreover,  it  is  hard  to  see  on  what  ground  night- 
work  could  be  held  to  be  more  harmful  for  women 
than  for  men.  Minimum-wage  laws  may  fix  a legal 
limit_  to  the  greed  of  employers,  but  they  can  not 
prevent  the  underpayment  of  women  workers,  for 
[they  are  based  on  theoretical  notions  of  a living 
wage,  and  have  no  relation  to  the  actual  value  of 
the  individual’s  labour.  Where  they  are  fixed  by 
law,  as  I have  remarked,  a rise  in  the  cost  of  living 
may  render  them  ineffectual.  As  for  those  laws 
which  undertake  to  protect  women  against  the 
hazards  of  industry,  they  have  usually,  as  the 
Women’s  Bureau  has  shown,  very  little  relation  to 
the  hazards  to  which  women  are  actually  exposed; 
but  they  constitute  a real  barrier  to  industrial  oppor- 
tunity. On  the  whole,  the  vast  and  unwieldy  array 
of  laws  and  rules  designed  either  to  protect  the 
woman  worker,  or  to  safeguard  the  future  of  the 
race  at  her  expense,  are  a pretty  lame  result  of  a 


Economic  Position  of  Women  177 

great  deal  of  humanitarian  sound  and  fury.  Par- 
turiunt  montes. 

It  is  quite  natural  that  the  result  should  be  lame; 
for  these  protections  and  safeguards  represent  so 
many  attempts  to  mind  some  one  else’s  business; 
and  the  great  difficulty  about  minding  some  one 
else’s  business  is  that  however  good  one’s  intentions 
may  be,  one  can  never  really  know  just  where 
that  some  one’s  real  interests  lie,  or  perfectly  under- 
stand the  circumstances  under  which  he  may  be 
most  advantageously  placed  in  the  way  to  ad- 
vance them,  for  the  circumstances  are  too  intimately 
bound  up  with  his  peculiar  temperament  and  situa- 
tion. As  Mill  has  remarked  in  a passage  which  I 
have  already  quoted,  the  world  has  learned  by  long 
experience  that  affairs  in  which  the  individual  is 
the  person  directly  interested  go  right  only  when 
they  are  left  to  his  own.  ilisoretion,  and  that  any 
interference  by  authority,  save  to  protect  the  rights 
of  others,  is  mischievous.  The  tendency  of  modern 
welfare-legislation  is  to  make  a complete  sacrifice  of 
individual  rights  not  to  the  rights  but  to  the  hypo- 
thetical interests  of  others;  and  for  every  individual 
who  happens  to  benefit  by  the  sacrifice,  there  is 
another  who  suffers  by  it.  If  it  is  hard  to  regulate 


178  Concerning  Women 

one  human  being  for  his  own  good,  it  is  impossible 
to  regulate  people  en  masse  for  their  own  good;  for 
there  is  no  way  of  making  a general  rule  affect 
all  individuals  in  the  same  way,  since  no  two  in- 
dividuals are  to  be  found  who  are  of  precisely  the 
same  temperament  and  in  precisely  the  same  situa- 
tion. 

There  is  in  all  this  bungling  effort  to  ameliorate 
the  ills  of  working  women  and  to  safeguard  through 
them  the  future  of  the  race,  a tacit  recognition  of 
economic  injustice  and  a strange  incuriousness 
about  its  causes.  One  would  naturally  expect  that 
the  conditions  which  move  people  to  seek  protective 
legislation  would  move  them  to  question  the  nature 
of  an  economic  system  which  permits  such  rapacity 
that  any  class  of  employees  requires  to  be  protected 
from  it.  Surely  the  forces  of  righteousness  must 
know  that  there  are  reasons  for  the  existence  of  the 
conditions  which  move  them  to  pity  and  alarm;  yet 
they  seem  quite  willing  to  go  on  indefinitely  battling 
against  the  conditions,  and  winning  with  great  ef- 
fort legislative  victories  which  are  constantly  being 
rendered  ineffectual  through  lax  administration  of 
laws,  through  the  reluctance  of  employees  to  jeopard- 
ize their  positions  by  testifying  against  employers, 


Economic  Position  of  Women  179 

or  through  unforeseen  changes  in  economic  condi- 
tions. During  all  this  waste  of  time  and  effort, 
this  building  and  crumbling  and  rebuilding  of  pro- 
tective walls  around  the  labourer,  the  causes  of 
economic  injustice  continue  their  incessant  operation, 
producing  continuously  a new  crop  of  effects  which 
are  like  so  many  windmills  inviting  attack  by  the 
Don  Quixotes  of  reform. 

Let  us  consider  the  effects  of  economic  injustice 
on  women,  side  by  side  with  the  reformer’s  work 
upon  those  effects.  Women  in  industry  suffer,  as 
I have  shown,  the  injustice  of  inequality  with  men 
as  regards  wages,  opportunities,  training,  and  tenure 
of  employment.  The  reformer  attacks  the  problem 
of  wages,  and  secures  minimum-wage  laws  based  on 
some  one’s  theory  of  what  constitutes  a living  wage. 
No  allowance  is  made  for  dependents  because 
women,  theoretically,  have  none.  The  amount  al- 
lowed may  from  the  first  be  inadequate,  even  for  one 
person,  or  it  may  be  rendered  inadequate  by  a rise  in 
the  cost  of  living.  In  either  case,  it  is  purely  arbi- 
trary, and  bears  no  relation  whatever  to  the  value  of 
the  worker’s  services.  Still,  such  legislation  might 
be  better  than  nothing  if  there  were  nothing  better 
to  be  done.  The  reformer  is  less  zealous  in  his  at- 


i8o  Concerning  Women 

tempt  to  provide  women  with  opportunities;  his 
showing  in  this  field  is  less  impressive  than  in  that 
of  wages.  Still,  he  has  done  something.  If  he  has 
not  been  entirely  responsible  for  the  opening  to 
women  of  many  positions  in  government  service, 
he  has  at  least  greatly  assisted  in  securing  them  these 
opportunities.  Farther  than  this,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, it  is  difficult  for  him  to  go.  He  might,  in- 
deed, exert  himself  to  see  that  women  are  provided 
by  one  means  or  another  with  equal  opportunities 
to  get  training,  but  he  can  do  little  to  affect  the 
policies  of  private  employers  of  labour,  who  can 
hardly  be  dictated  to  concerning  whom  they  shall 
hire  and  whom  they  shall  retain.  Nor  can  he  pre- 
vent employers  from  laying  off  women  workers  first 
when  there  is  a slowing  down  in  production.  In 
three,  then,  out  of  four  of  the  disadvantages  which 
bear  more  heavily  on  women  in  industry  than  on 
men,  the  reformer,  with  all  his  excellent  intentions, 
is  unable  to  be  very  helpful;  while  in  his  zeal  to 
safeguard  the  race,  whose  future  appears  to  him 
to  depend  entirely  on  the  health  of  the  female  sex, 
he  has  multiplied  their  disadvantages  in  the  man- 
ner I have  already  described,  without,  however,  hav- 


Economic  Position  of  Women  181 

ing  made  any  noteworthy  advance  toward  the  ac- 
complishment of  his  purpose. 

Now,  had  he  chosen  to  inquire  into  the  causes 
of  the  artificial  disabilities  by  which  women  workers 
are  handicapped,  he  might  have  discovered  that  these 
and  the  industrial  hazards  which  cause  him  such 
grave  concern  may  be  traced  to  the  same  funda- 
mental source;  and  that  the  just  and  only  effective 
way  of  removing  these  disabilities  and  hazards  is 
to  eradicate  the  source.  Women  in  industry  are 
the  victims  of  traditional  prejudices:  I have  shown 
what  those  prejudices  are — the  idea  that  woman’s 
place  is  the  home,  that  women  workers  have  mo  de- 
pendents, that  they  work  for  pin-money  and  there- 
fore do  not  need  a living  wage,  that  upon  them  alone  $ < 
depends  the  future  health  of  the  race.  But  as  I 
remarked  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  these 
prejudices  could  not  be  turned  to  the  disadvantage 
of  the  woman  worker  if  it  were  not  for  the  over-* 
crowding  of  the  labour-market.  So  long  as  there 
are  more  people  looking  for  work  than  there  are 
jobs  to  be  had,  the  advantage  in  fixing  terms  and 
conditions  of  labour  is  on  the  side  of  the  employer. 

If  men  are  obliged  by  their  need  to  put  up  with 


1 82  Concerning  Women 

underpayment,  women  will  be  forced  to  accept  an 
even  worse  rate;  if  the  tenure  of  men  is  uncertain, 
that  of  women  will  be  even  more  so.  If  the  condi- 
tions of  industry  are  hazardous,  the  alternative  of 
starvation  will  force  the  workers  to  risk  injury  or 
death  unless  the  employer  be  required  by  law  to 
maintain  the  proper  safeguards.  Suppose,  how- 
ever, that  labour  were  scarce,  that  for  every  worker 
looking  for  employment  there  were  a dozen  em- 
ployers looking  for  workers.  Under  such  circum- 
stances, the  employer  would  be  glad  enough  to  hire 
the  worker  who  could  fill  his  particular  requirements, 
without  regard  to  sex,  as  employers  did  during  the 
war  when  labour  was  scarce;  and  he  would  pay  the 
worker  a wage  determined  not  by  theory  or  prejudice, 
but  by  the  amount  of  competition  for  the  worker’s 
services.  If  the  employment  he  offered  were  hazard- 
ous, he  would  be  obliged  to  maintain  proper  safe- 
guards in  order  to  retain  his  employees,  and  in 
addition  would  probably  be  forced  to  pay  them  a 
higher  wage  than  they  could  earn  in  some  safer 
employment.  If  he  did  not  do  these  things,  his 
workers  would  simply  leave  him  for  more  satis- 
factory positions.  Nor  would  he  be  able  to  over- 
work his  employees,  for  if  he  attempted  to  do  so,  some 


Economic  Position  of  Women  183 

rival  employer  would  outbid  him  for  their  services 
by  offering  better  hours  and  easier  conditions  of 
labour.  Thus  the  peculiar  disabilities  of  women 
workers  would  disappear  with  the  disabilities  of 
labourers  in  general,  and  not  a stroke  of  legislation 
would  be  required  to  make  industry  both  safe  and 
profitable  for  the  woman  worker. 

This  condition  is  not  unnatural  or  impossible. 
It  is  the  present  condition  of  chronic  unemployent, 
of  expensive  and  ineffectual  “welfare”  legislation, 
of  wasteful  and  futile  struggles  between  organized 
capital  and  organized  labour — it  is  this  condition 
that  is  entirely  unnatural.  I have  mentioned  its 
cause  in  Chapter  III,  and  I shall  discuss  it  further 
in  my  next  chapter.  Upon  its  removal,  and  not 
upon  regulations  which  hamper  the  woman  worker 
and  reduce  her  to  the  status  of  a function,  the  fu- 
ture of  the  race  depends.  The  ancestors  of  com- 
ing generations  are  men  as  well  as  women,  and 
posterity  will  derive  its  heritage  of  health  from  its 
ancestors  of  both  sexes.  Its  prospect  of  health  will 
not  be  improved  by  legislation  calculated  to  safe- 
guard the  health  of  women  workers,  so  long  as  the 
children  they  bear  continue  to  be  exposed  to  an 
involuntary  poverty  which  breeds  ignorance,  im- 


184  Concerning  Women 

becility,  disease  and  crime.  The  happiness  as  well 
as  the  health  of  future  generations  will  depend  in 
great  measure  upon  the  extent  to  which  both  men 
and  women  can  release  themselves  from  the  deterio- 
rating conditions  of  economic  exploitation. 

n 

It  is  in  business  and  in  professional  pursuits  that 
the  occupational  progress  of  women,  and  their  eman- 
cipation from  traditional  prejudices,  are  most 
marked.  Although  in  the  lower  ranks  of  labour 
in  these  pursuits  there  is  a mass  of  women  who, 
impelled  by  necessity,  work  for  low  wages  at  mechan- 
ical tasks  which  offer  no  chance  of  advancement, 
there  is,  nearer  the  top,  a large  group  of  women 
who  have  been  more  fortunate  in  worldly  position 
and  education,  and  who  are  spurred  as  much 
either  by  interest  in  their  work  or  a desire  to  be 
self-supporting,  as  by  actual  need  to  earn;  who 
share,  in  other  words,  the  attitude  that  leads  young 
men  to  strike  out  for  themselves  even  though  their 
fathers  may  be  able  to  support  them.  It  is  the 
woman  animated  by  these  motives  who  is  doing 
most  for  the  advancement  of  her  sex;  for  it  is  she, 


Economic  Position  of  Women  185 

and  not  the  woman  who  works  through  necessity, 
who  really  challenges  the  traditional  prejudices  con- 
cerning the  proper  place  of  women.  The  woman 
labourer  proves  the  need  of  women  to  earn ; the  bus- 
iness woman  or  professional  woman  who  works 
because  she  wants  to  work,  is  establishing  the  right 
of  women  to  earn.  More  than  this,  as  she  makes 
her  way  into  one  after  another  of  the  occupations 
that  have  been  held  to  belong  to  men  by  prescriptive 
right,  she  is  establishing  her  claim,  as  a human 
being,  to  choose  her  work  from  the  whole  wide  field 
of  human  activity.  It  is  owing  to  the  attitude  to- 
wards life  adopted  by  such  women,  to  their  prefer- 
ence of  independence  and  action  over  the  dependence 
and  passivity  in  vogue  not  so  many  years  ago,  that 
it  is  coming  to  be  quite  the  expected  thing  that  young 
women  of  the  well-to-do  classes  shall  .set  out  to 
earn  their  living,  as  young  men  do,  instead  of  stop- 
ping under  the  parental  roof,  with  a watchful  eye 
out  for  men  who  will  marry  and  support  them. 
Need  I remark  that  nothing  is  more  likely  than 
this  new  attitude  to  bring  about  the  substitution  of 
the  “union  by  affection”  for  the  union  by  interest? 
The  woman  who  is  economically  independent  is 
under  much  less  temptation  to  marry  from  economic 


1 86  Concerning  Women 

motives  than  the  woman  for  whom  marriage  rep- 
resents the  only  prospect  of  security. 

There  is  still  a goodly  number  of  prejudices  and 
discriminations  to  be  overcome  before  women  in 
business  and  the  professions  shall  stand  on  an  equal 
footing  with  men  as  regards  opportunity  and  re- 
muneration. Except  where  she  is  in  business  for 
herself,  the  woman  in  these  pursuits  must  generally 
be  content  with  a lower  rate  of  pay  than  men;  and 
if  observation  may  be  taken  to  count  for  anything, 
she  is  expected  to  work  somewhat  harder  for  what 
she  gets — less  loafing  on  the  job  is  tolerated  in  her 
than  in  the  male  employee.  She  is  also  more  likely 
to  find  herself  pocketed ; that  is  to  say,  in  a position 
from  which,  because  of  her  sex,  there  is  no  possibil- 
ity of  further  advance  because  the  higher  positions 
are  reserved  for  men.  It  is  so  universally  the  rule 
that  women  must  content  themselves  with  reaching 
the  lower  rungs  of  the  occupational  ladder,  that 
the  instances  where  they  manage  to  attain  to  places 
of  responsibility  and  authority  are  still  rare  enough 
to  be  found  worthy  of  remark  in  the  press.  The 
same  thing  is  true  of  political  positions;  women 
are  not  yet  represented  in  politics  in  anything  like 
a just  proportion  to  their  numbers,  nor  are  they 


Economic  Position  of  Women  187 

often  able  to  get  themselves  either  elected  or  ap- 
pointed to  responsible  positions.  None  the  less, 
considering  the  comparatively  short  time  since  their 
emergence  into  the  business  world  and  the  world 
of  public  affairs,  they  are  already  making  an  ex- 
cellent showing. 

The  world  of  business  and  the  professions,  like 
the  world  of  industry,  has  its  occupations  which  are 
considered  peculiarly  suitable  for  wromen.  Strictly 
subordinate  positions  are  thought  to  suit  them  very 
well ; hence  there  is  quite  an  army  of  women  stenog- 
raphers, bookkeepers,  clerks  and  secretaries  to  be 
found  in  the  business  section  of  any  modem  city. 
The  personnel  of  the  nursing  profession  is  made  up 
almost  exclusively  of  women;  and  the  work  of 
teaching  in  our  public  schools,  especially  where  it 
is  most  conspicuously  underpaid,  is  largely  in  their 
hands.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  an  impression  current 
among  members  of  school  boards  that  marriage  dis- 
qualifies a woman  for  the  teaching  profession;  but 
the  single  woman  is  fairly  secure  in  her  position, 
possibly  because  it  does  not  pay  well  enough  to  be 
very  attractive  to  men.  Occupations  connected 
with  the  arts  are  also  held,  in  this  country,  to  be 
particularly  well  adapted  for  women,  although  it 


188  Concerning  Women 

must  be  noted  that  the  prejudice  of  male  musicians 
is  effective  enough  to  exclude  them  from  the  per- 
sonnel of  our  important  orchestras.  It  is  in  the 
creative  arts  that  their  work  is  most  welcomed; 
more  especially  in  the  field  of  literature;  and  this 
may  seem  strange,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  so  many 
eminent  authorities  believe  that  their  sex  renders 
them  incapable  of  attaining  any  significance  in 
creative  work.  It  is,  I apprehend,  rather  to  the  low 
opinion  in  which  aesthetic  pursuits  are  held  in  this 
country  than  to  a high  opinion  of  female  ability, 
that  this  peculiar  condition  must  be  ascribed. 

But  if  certain  occupations  are  considered  pecul- 
iarly appropriate  for  women,  there  is  none  the  less  a 
great  deal  of  prejudice  against  them  in  others.  The 
idea  that  woman’s  place  is  the  home  has  no  more 
disappeared  from  the  world  of  business  and  the 
professions  than  it  has  disappeared  from  the  world 
of  industry,  even  though  it  is  the  business  woman 
and  the  professional  woman  who  are  doing  most  to 
dislodge  it.  And  here  it  may  be  well  to  remark  a 
fact  that  has  already  been  noted,  with  some  pointed 
comment,  by  Ethel  Snowden,  namely:  that  woman’s 
invasion  of  the  gainful  occupations  appears  to  be 


Economic  Position  of  Women  189 

found  unwomanly  in  proportion  to  the  importance 
of  the  position  to  which  she  aspires. 

It  is  the  married  woman  in  business  or  in  pro- 
fessional work,  as  it  is  in  industry,  who  suffers 
most  from  the  surviving  prejudices  concerning  her 
sex.  When  there  are  economies  to  be  effected 
through  the  discharge  of  workers,  the  idea  that  the 
married  woman  is  normally  a dependent  comes  im- 
mediately to  the  fore,  and  she  is  the  first  employee 
to  be  discharged.  For  example,  Equal  Rights  of  8 
August,  1925,  noted  in  an  editorial  that  the  city  of 
St.  Louis  had  begun  a campaign  for  economy  by 
discharging  twelve  married  women;  that  there  was 
a movement  on  in  Germany  to  reduce  governmental 
expenses  by  a wholesale  discharge  of  women  em- 
ployees; and  that,  according  to  rumour,  Mr.  Coo- 
lidge’s  campaign  of  economy  was  being  made  to 
bear  most  heavily  on  married  women.  The  com- 
ment of  Equal  Rights  on  the  action  of  the  city  of 
St.  Louis  is  worth  quoting: 

St.  Louis  employed  twenty-seven  married  women. 
It  investigated  the  economic  condition  of  all  these,  re- 
tained nine,  discharged  twelve,  and  was,  at  last  report, 
still  considering  the  case  of  the  other  six.  St.  Louis 


190  Concerning  Women 

did  not  investigate  the  economic  condition  of  the  men 
employees,  to  see  whether  or  not  these  might  continue 
to  live  if  they  were  discharged.  St.  Louis  did  not  try 
to  find  out  whether  or  not  these  men  had  fathers, 
brothers,  mothers,  or  wives  who  might  support  them 
while  they  were  looking  for  other  jobs.  St.  Louis  as- 
sumed that  men  have  a right  to  economic  independence 
and  the  increased  happiness  and  opportunity  that  it 
brings.  St.  Louis  assumed  that  women  have  no  such 
right. 

In  other  words,  St.  Louis  assumed,  as  the  German 
and  American  Governments  apparently  assume,  and 
as  most  private  employers  assume,  that  women  are 
employed  on  sufferance;  especially  married  women. 
Of  course  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  position 
of  the  married  woman  in  this  respect  is  only  worse 
than  that  of  single  women,  and  that  the  position  of 
women  is  only  worse  than  that  of  men;  for,  as  I 
have  already  remarked,  under  a monopolistic  eco- 
nomic system  the  opportunity  to  earn  a living  by 
one’s  labour  comes  to  be  regarded  as  a privilege  in- 
stead of  a natural  right.  Women  are  simply  held 
to  be  less  entitled  to  this  privilege  than  men. 

That  marriage  should  so  often  assume  the  nature 
of  a disability  for  the  woman  who  either  wishes 


Economic  Position  of  Women  191 

or  is  obliged  to  earn,  whereas  it  often  operates  in 
favour  of  the  male  worker,  may  be  attributed  to 
the  traditional  assumption  that  married  women  are 
dependent  on,  and  subject  to,  their  husbands.  I 
remarked  in  the  preceding  chapter  that  the  married 
woman  who  wishes  to  engage  in  business  finds  her- 
self, in  many  communities,  hampered  by  legal  dis- 
abilities arising  from  her  marital  status,  whereas 
her  husband  is  under  no  corresponding  disabilities. 
Her  position  as  an  industrial  and  salaried  worker 
is  rendered  insecure  if  not  by  law,  at  least  by  the. 
same  psychology  that  keeps  legal  disabilities  in 
force.  This  psychology  may  be  defined  as  the  ex- 
pectation that  a woman  when  she  marries  shall, 
surrender  a much  greater  degree  of  personal  free- 
dom than  the  man  she  marries.  The  man  who 
does  not  object  to  his  wife’s  having  a career  is  con- 
sidered generous  and  long-suffering.  His  insist- 
ence on  her  abandoning  it  and  contenting  herself 
with  looking  out  for  his  domestic  comfort  is  thought 
to  be  quite  natural.1  On  the  other  hand,  the  woman 

1 There  are,  of  course,  exceptions  to  this  rule ; as  when  a woman 
has,  before  her  marriage,  already  made  a great  reputation.  In  such 
a case  the  husband  would  be  thought  selfish  who  demanded  the 
sacrifice  of  her  career.  But  the  husband  who  demands  the  sacrifice 
of  a potential  career  is  generally  thought  to  be  well  within  his 
rights. 


192  Concerning  Women 

who  interferes  in  any  way  with  a husband’s  career 
is  regarded  as  an  extremely  selfish  person;  while 
any  sacrifice  of  herself  and  her  ambitions  to  her 
husband  and  his,  is  thought  of  merely  as  a matter 
of  wifely  duty.  How  often  does  one  hear  that  such 
and  such  a woman  has  given  up  her  position  be- 
cause “her  husband  didn’t  want  her  to  work.” 
There  is,  too,  a very  general  assumption  that  every 
married  woman  has  children  and  should  stay  at 
home  and  take  care  of  them.  Now,  perhaps  every 
married  woman  should  have  children;  perhaps  in  a 
future  state  of  society  men  and  women  will  marry 
only  when  they  wish  to  bring  up  a family.  But  at 
present  it  is  not  so;  therefore  at  present  the  as- 
sumption that  a married  woman  should  stay  at  home 
and  take  care  of  her  children  leaves  out  of  account 
the  fact  that  a large  and  increasing  number  of  mar- 
ried women  are  childless.  It  may  be  contended 
that  these  women  should  stay  at  home  and  take  care 
of  their  husbands;  but  even  if  we  assume  that  the 
unremitting  personal  attention  of  his  wife  is  es- 
sential to  the  comfort  and  happiness  of  a married 
man,  there  would  still  remain  the  question  of  his 
title  to  this  attention  at  the  cost  of  her  own  interests. 

We  are  dealing  here  with  an  attitude  which,  gen- 


Economic  Position  of  Women  193 

eral  though  it  be,  has  been  outmoded  by  the  condi- 
tions of  modern  life.  The  sexual  division  of  in- 
terests and  labour  which  has  been  insisted  upon  so 
long  among  European  peoples  does  not  very  well 
fit  in  with  the  organization  of  industrial  and  social 
life  in  the  twentieth  century.  Our  social  ideology, 
like  our  political  ideology,  is  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury; and  its  especial  effectiveness  at  present  is  by 
way  of  obscuring  our  vision  of  the  changed  world 
that  has  emerged  from  the  great  economic  revolu- 
tion of  the  last  century.  A division  of  interests  and 
labour  which  was  convenient  if  not  just  under  the 
conditions  of  economic  and  social  life  which  pre- 
ceded the  industrial  revolution,  is  neither  convenient 
nor  just  under  the  conditions  which  prevail  today. 
The  care  of  young  children  and  the  management  of 
a household  may  result  in  an  unequal  division  of 
labour  in  families  where  the  husband’s  inability 
to  provide  for  the  needs  of  his  family  forces  the 
wife  to  assume  the  burdens  of  a breadwinner. 
When  one  reads  through  the  literature  on  the  ques- 
tion of  hours  of  labour  for  women  in  industry,  one 
is  struck  by  the  persistent  stressing  of  the  married 
woman’s  double  burden  of  breadwinning  and  house- 
keeping. These  women,  it  seems,  must  not  only 


194  Concerning  Women 

earn  money  to  contribute  to  their  families’  support, 
but  they  must,  before  setting  out  for  work  and  after 
returning  from  it,  prepare  the  family  meals,  get  the 
children  ready  for  school  or  the  day-nursery,  take 
them  there  and  call  for  them,  wash,  sew,  and  per- 
form a hundred  other  household  tasks.  This 
double  burden  is  often  made  an  argument  for  estab- 
lishing shorter  hours  of  work  for  women  in  indus- 
try, but  never  for  expecting  the  husband  to  share 
the  wife’s  traditional  burden  as  she  has  been  forced 
to  share  his.  I have  no  doubt  that  innumerable 
husbands  are  doing  this;  but  there  is  no  expecta- 
tion put  upon  them  to  do  it,  and  those  who  do  not 
are  in  no  wise  thought  to  shirk  their  duty  to  their 
families,  as  their  wives  would  be  thought  to  do 
if  they  neglected  to  perform  the  labour  of  the  house- 
hold. 

Quite  analogous  to  this  attitude  of  the  advocates 
of  special  legislation  for  working  women  is  that  of 
the  people  who  concern  themselves  with  the  so-called 
problem  of  the  educated  woman,  which  is  supposed 
to  be  that  of  reconciling  domesticity  with  intellectual 
pursuits.  A timely  illustration  of  this  attitude  is 
the  establishment  by  Smith  College  of  an  institute 
for  the  “co-ordination  of  women’s  interests.”  The 


Economic  Position  of  Women  195 

purpose  of  this  institute,  in  the  words  of  President 
Neilson,  is  “to  find  a solution  of  the  problem  which 
confronts  almost  every  educated  woman  today — 
how  to  reconcile  a normal  life  of  marriage  and 
motherhood  with  a life  of  intellectual  activity,  pro- 
fessional or  otherwise.”  Here  again  is  the  tacit 
assumption  that  marriage  is  the  special  concern  of 
woman,  and  one  whose  claims  must  take  precedence 
over  her  other  interests,  whatever  they  may  be;  that 
marriage  and  motherhood  constitute  her  normal  life, 
and  her  other  interests  something  extra-normal 
which  must  somehow  be  made  to  fit  in  if  possible. 
I have  heard  of  no  institute  intended  to  find  a way 
to  reconcile  the  normal  life  of  marriage  and  father- 
hood with  a life  of  intellectual  activity,  professional 
or  otherwise;  although  when  one  considers  how 
many  educated  men  of  today  are  obliged  to  com- 
promise with  their  consciences  in  order  to  secure 
themselves  in  positions  which  will  enable  them  to 
provide  for  their  families,  one  is  persuaded  that 
some  such  institute  might  be  at  least  equally  ap- 
propriate and  equally  helpful  with  that  which 
Smith  College  has  established. 

Let  us  forget  for  a moment  the  sophisticated  tradi- 
tional attitude  toward  this  question  of  marriage  and 


196  Concerning  Women 

parenthood,  and  go  back,  as  it  were,  to  the  begin- 
ning— to  a fact  recognized  in  the  animal  world  and 
not  entirely  overlooked  by  primitive  man,  namely: 
that  every  offspring  has  two  parents  who  are  equally 
responsible  for  its  care  and  protection.  In  the  ani- 
mal kingdom  one  finds  a widely  varied  division  of 
the  labour  connected  with  the  care  of  the  young. 
For  example,  the  male  of  certain  species  is  found 
to  perform  functions  which  our  own  usage  has  led 
us  to  regard  as  maternal.  Among  the  viviparous 
animals  the  heavier  share  of  responsibility  rests  with 
the  female  during  the  gestation,  birth  and  extreme 
youth  of  the  offspring ; and  among  primitive  human 
beings  the  actual  physical  dependence  of  the  off- 
spring on  the  mother  is  likely  to  be  prolonged  over 
a period  of  several  years.  It  was,  perhaps,  this 
necessity  of  a close  physical  association  between 
mother  and  child  that  led  to  a sexual  division  of 
labour  under  which  the  mother  undertook  the  phys- 
ical care  of  children  while  the  father  undertook 
the  task  of  providing  food.  It  must  be  remarked, 
however,  that  this  division  of  labour  by  no  means  ex- 
cludes productive  labour  on  the  part  of  the  woman. 
Among  most  tribes  she  augments  the  food-supply 
through  agriculture,  (grubbing,  or  sometimes  through 


Economic  Position  of  Women  197 

fishing  or  hunting;  and  there  are  tribes,  notably  in 
Africa,  where  she  is  the  sole  provider  for  the  family. 
The  Vaertings  have  remarked  that  the  drudgery  con- 
nected with  the  care  of  children  is  invariably  im- 
posed by  the  dominant  upon  the  subject  sex;  a 
view  which  is  in  perfect  consonance  with  what  we 
know  of  the  general  human  willingness  to  transfer 
to  other  shoulders  the  burden  of  uninteresting 
though  necessary  labour.  Since  women  have  most 
often  been  subject,  they  have  most  often  been  forced 
to  undertake  this  drudgery,  either  in  lieu  of  or  in 
addition  to  the  labour  of  providing  food  and  shelter 
for  their  families. 

This  is  to  say  that  their  subject  position  has 
added  considerably  to  what  newspaper  editors  and 
other  commentators  are  fond  of  calling  the  burden 
of  Eve.  Since  woman  is  the  childbearing  sex,  it 
has  seemed  natural  to  a great  many  peoples  to  in- 
crease the  disadvantage  at  which  her  share  in  re- 
production naturally  places  her,  by  making  her  con- 
finement at  home  permanent  instead  of  occasional, 
and  by  permitting  her  few,  if  any,  interests  save 
those  connected  with  reproduction ; in  short,  by  pro- 
longing and  enhancing  her  subjection  to  the  de- 
mands of  the  race.  This  is  why  the  term  married 


198  Concerning  Women 

woman  is  still  taken  to  imply  the  term  housekeeper; 
an  implication  which,  as  the  Freeman  remarked 
editorially  some  years  ago,  modern  civilization  must 
renounce  “if  it  wants  such  of  its  women  as  are  edi- 
tors and  bank-presidents  to  be  mothers  as  well.” 

Civilization  shortens  the  period  of  the  child’s 
physical  dependence  on  the  mother  by  shortening 
the  period  of  lactation.  On  the  other  hand,  it  in- 
creases fecundity  to  such  an  extent  that  where  re- 
ligious superstition  or  ignorance  prevents  the  use 
of  contraceptives,  the  burden  of  childbearing  is 
greatly  increased.  This  result  of  civilization  is 
not,  however,  commonly  found  among  the  educated 
classes;  and  even  among  those  classes  where  chil- 
dren are  most  numerous,  I have  already  shown  that 
women  are  not  restrained  by  motherhood  from  en- 
gaging in  gainful  occupations  outside  the  home. 
On  the  contrary,  the  number  of  their  offspring  is 
more  often  their  chief  incentive  to  this  course. 
Among  well-to-do  families,  prepared  foods  and  wet- 
nursing  have  for  a long  time  been  rather  generally 
employed  to  relieve  mothers  even  of  the  responsi- 
bility of  lactation,  while  the  custom  of  assigning  the 
physical  care  of  children  to  hired  substitutes  has 
reduced  their  actual  work  to  that  of  bringing  the 


Economic  Position  of  Women  199 

child  into  the  world.  That  this  mode  of  caring  for 
children  is  approved  by  all  classes  is  evident  from 
their  readiness  to  adopt  it  when  fortune  favours 
them  with  an  opportunity.  It  is  occasionally  in- 
veighed against  by  moralists,  but  on  the  whole  it  is 
coveted  and  approved,  especially  while  women  de- 
vote to  frivolous  pursuits  the  leisure  that  it  leaves 
them.  When  a woman  adopts  this  mode  in  order 
to  reconcile  motherhood  with  a serious  interest  out- 
side the  home,  it  is  a different  matter,  and  lays  her 
open  to  the  charge  of  neglecting  her  family,  though 
in  fact  she  may  spend  no  more  hours  away  from 
home  than  the  woman  who  gives  her  morning  to 
shopping  and  her  afternoon  to  playing  bridge. 
Why  this  should  be  the  case  I am  at  a loss  to  know, 
unless  it  be  that  a serious  interest  outside  the  home 
appears  to  smack  too  much  of  an  assertion  of  her 
right  to  live  her  life  for  her  own  sake  rather  than 
for  the  sake  of  the  race  or  that  of  her  husband — a 
self-assertion  not  readily  to  be  accepted  without  such 
reservations  as  find  expression  in  institutes  designed 
to  “co-ordinate  women’s  interests.” 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  care  of  the  young  is  the 
concern  of  both  sexes,  and  is  so  recognized  in  the 
animal  world  and  among  human  beings;  and  that 


200  Concerning  Women 

among  the  latter  such  differences  in  usage  as  exist 
touching  this  matter  are  differences  in  the  appor- 
tioning of  the  burden.  Even  in  our  own  day,  when 
there  is  observable  a tendency  to  forget  that  the 
child  has  more  than  one  parent — that  parent  being 
the  mother — the  father’s  claim  to  his  children  is 
still  recognized  in  law,  often  to  the  prejudice  of  the 
mother’s;  and  so,  likewise,  is  his  obligation  to  pro- 
vide for  them.  Indeed,  the  child  may  be  said  to 
be  regarded  as  exclusively  the  mother’s  only  while 
it  is  young;  for  it  is  a general  custom  among  us  to 
speak  of  Mrs.  So-and-So’s  baby,  but  of  Mr.  So- 
and-So’s  son  or  daughter.  (Let  us,  then,  recognize 
the  claim  and  interest  of  both  parents.  Let  us  also 
remember  that  the  economic  organization  has  so  ex- 
tensively altered  that  the  traditional  division  of 
labour — this  division  is  always  profoundly  affected 
by  consideration  of  the  young — has  been  outmoded 
as  far  as  thousands  of  families  are  concerned.  Let 
us  also  assume  that  woman  has  established  her  right 
to  be  considered  as  a human  being  rather  than  a 
function  or  a chattel.  Then  it  must  seem  reason- 
able to  assume  that  the  co-ordination  of  interests  to 
be  brought  about  concerns  both  sexes  equally;  that 
the  problem  to  be  confronted  is  that  of  reconciling 


Economic  Position  of  Women  201 


a normal  life  of  marriage  and  parenthood  not  only 
with  the  freest  possible  development  of  intellectual 
interest  but  with  the  utmost  devotion  to  any  chosen 
profession. 

I can  not  pretend  to  foretell  how  this  problem  will 
be  settled;  for  its  solution  will  depend  upon  the  gen- 
eral solution  of  the  labour-problem.  It  may  be 
that  the  necessary  collectivism  of  modern  industry 
will  result  in  a collectivist  system  of  caring  for  chil- 
dren. Such  a system  would  by  no  means  be  an  in- 
novation; it  would  simply  constitute  an  extension 
and  adaptation  of  means  which  already  exist — of 
nurseries  for  very  small  children  and  schools  for 
older  ones.  Whatever  its  demerits  might  be,  such  a 
system  would  certainly  represent  an  enormous  econ- 
omy of  effort.  The  average  home  is  adapted  less 
to  the  needs  of  children  than  to  those  of  adults; 
hence  a mother  of  young  children  must  spend  a 
great  deal  of  her  time  in  preventing  her  young 
charges  from  injuring  themselves  with  dangerous 
household  implements,  from  falling  downstairs  or 
off  of  furniture  too  high  for  them,  and  from  touch- 
ing objects  which  would  not  be  safe  in  their  hands. 
In  a properly  equipped  nursery,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  furniture  and  all  the  objects  are  adapted  to  the 


202  Concerning  Women 

size  and  intelligence  of  the  children.  Children 
have  the  advantage  of  numerous  playmates;  and 
one  person  can  supervise  the  play  of  a dozen  of 
them  with  less  fatigue  than  the  mother  of  one  is 
likely  to  feel  at  the  end  of  a day  in  the  average 
home. 

The  Russians  have  already  taken  some  steps  in 
this  direction  by  establishing  both  nurseries  and 
schools  in  connexion  with  certain  factories.  From 
what  I can  gather  of  their  policy,  it  would  seem  that 
they  regard  the  care  and  education  of  children  as 
being  very  much  the  concern  of  the  whole  commu- 
nity. They  look  upon  childbearing  as  a service  to 
the  community,  but  they  do  not  appear  to  take  the 
view  that  women  should  be  required  to  perform  this 
service  at  the  expense  of  their  independence,  for 
they  have  instituted  a system  of  subsidies  for  preg- 
nant and  nursing  working  mothers,  with  rest- 
periods  before  and  after  confinement,  and  a sub- 
sidy during  confinement  amounting  to  the  daily 
subsidy  multiplied  by  fifteen.1 

I have  already  indicated  in  the  preceding  chapter 

1 From  the  Laws  and  Decrees  of  the  Soviet  Government  on  medi- 
cal questions,  sanitation,  etc.,  published  in  Moscow,  1922. 


Economic  Position  of  Women  203 

what  it  seems  to  me  would  be  the  course  of  a free 
people  in  this  matter  of  reconciling  the  care  of  chil- 
dren with  the  greatest  possible  freedom  for  both 
parents.  It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  call  attention 
to  the  obvious  fact  that  the  question  is  simply  that 
of  placing  the  care  of  the  young  in  the  hands  of 
those  who  are  interested  in  it  and  fitted  for  it,  instead 
of  forcing  it  willy-nilly  upon  either  sex  through  a 
traditional  expectation  and  a traditional  division  of 
labour.  In  a free  society,  those  parents  who  wished 
to  pursue  careers  incompatible  with  the  actual  care 
of  young  children  would  avail  themselves  of  the 
services  of  substitutes,  as  the  well-to-do  classes  do 
at  present;  and  they  might  do  so  with  even  greater 
confidence  because,  as  I have  remarked,  those  en- 
gaged in  caring  for  and  teaching  the  young  would 
do  so  as  a matter  of  interest  primarily  and  only 
secondarily  as  a means  of  livelihood.  There  is 
another  important  consideration  to  be  taken  into 
account,  and  that  is,  that  in  a free  society  the  prob- 
lem of  reconciling  the  occupations  of  the  parents 
with  their  personal  supervision  of  their  children 
would  be  much  easier  to  solve;  for  their  hours  of 
labour  would  be  greatly  decreased.  It  is  only  where 


204  Concerning  Women 

production  must  support  an  enormous  amount  of 
idleness  and  waste  that  it  is  necessary  to  overwork 
producers. 

It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  the  institution  of 
economic  freedom  might  check  the  present  tendency 
of  women  to  engage  in  gainful  occupations  outside 
the  home.  It  most  certainly  would  if  the  vast  in- 
crease of  opportunity  which  it  offered  were  reserved 
exclusively  for  men;  but  to  bring  about  this  result 
it  would  be  necessary  for  traditional  anti-feminist 
prejudices  to  survive  much  more  strongly  than  they 
do  today.  The  position  of  women  has  too  radically 
changed  to  admit  of  their  exclusion  from  direct 
participation  in  the  benefits  of  economic  freedom; 
therefore  if  they  resigned  the  increased  economic 
opportunities  that  it  offered  them,  and  withdrew  to 
the  sphere  of  domesticity,  they  would  do  so  as  a 
matter  of  choice.  Why  should  we  not  expect  them 
to  choose  the  exclusive  domesticity  which  might  be 
rendered  possible  through  the  increased  earning 
power  of  men?  They  probably  would,  where  it 
suited  their  taste  to  do  so;  but  one  of  the  most  power- 
ful incentives  to  do  so  would  no  longer  exist, 
namely:  the  desire  for  economic  security.  Women, 
to  be  sure,  are  not  exempt  from  the  characteristic 


Economic  Position  of  Women  205 

willingness  of  humankind  to  live  by  the  exertions 
of  others ; but  I would  remark  that  there  is  this  dif- 
ference between  the  person  who  does  this  indirectly, 
through  legalized  privilege,  and  the  person  who  de- 
pends directly  on  the  bounty  of  another:  that  the 
former  is  independent  and  the  latter  is  dependent. 
Women  are  not  strangers  to  the  human  desire  for 
freedom;  and  when  the  fear  of  want  is  allayed  they 
are  quite  likely  to  prefer  an  easy  and  secure  self- 
support  to  the  alternative  of  economic  depehdence. 
Moreover,  economic  freedom  would  set  domesticity 
in  competition  with  the  interests  of  women  rather 
than  their  needs;  for  it  would  set  all  people  free  to 
engage  in  occupations  that  interested  them,  whereas 
at  present  the  vast  majority  do  whatever  offers  them 
a living.  Under  these  circumstances  it  might  rea- 
sonably be  expected  that  the  number  of  women  who 
would  continue  in  business  and  in  industrial  and 
professional  pursuits,  even  after  marriage  and  the 
birth  of  children,  would  greatly  increase. 

Indeed,  if  we  postulate  an  economic  system  under 
which  every  human  being  would  be  free  to  choose 
his  occupation  in  accordance  with  his  interests,  I 
see  no  more  reason  to  suppose  that  women  would 
invariably  choose  domesticity  than  to  suppose  that 


2o6  Concerning  Women 

all  men  would  choose  blacksmithing.  Under  such 
a regime  I doubt  that  even  the  power  of  the  expected 
which  affects  them  so  strongly  at  present,  would 
long  continue  in  an  effectiveness  which  it  has  al- 
ready begun  to  lose.  Women,  I think,  might  be 
expected  to  choose  their  occupations  with  the  same 
freedom  as  men,  and  to  look  for  no  serious  interrup- 
tion from  marriage  and  the  birth  of  children. 
There  are  a good  many  women  at  present  who  very 
ably  reconcile  motherhood  with  a chosen  career. 
I think  we  might  expect  to  find  more  of  them  rather 
than  fewer,  in  a free  society.  One  thing  is  certain, 
and  it  is  the  important  thing:  they  would  be  free 
to  choose.  If  it  be  woman’s  nature,  as  some  people 
still  believe,  to  wish  to  live  at  second  hand,  then  in 
a free  society  they  will  freely  make  that  choice,  and 
no  one  can  complain  of  it — unless  it  be  the  men  on 
whom  they  elect  to  depend.  However,  to  assume 
from  past  experience  that  they  do  want  to  live  at 
second  hand  is  to  assume  that  all  the  social  and 
legal  injustices  which  have  been  employed  to  force 
them  to  do  so,  were  unnecessary;  and  when  have 
Governments  and  communities  wasted  their  power 
in  exercising  compulsion  where  no  compulsion  was 
needed  ? 


CHAPTER  VI 


WHAT  IS  TO  BE  DONE 
I 

In  the  foregoing  chapters  I have  intimated  that 
every  phase  of  the  question  of  freedom  for  women 
is  bound  up  with  the  larger  question  of  human 
freedom.  If  it  is  freedom  that  women  want,  they 
can  not  be  content  to  be  legally  equal  with  men; 
but  having  gained  this  equality  they  must  carry  on 
their  struggle  against  the  oppressions  which  privi- 
lege exercises  upon  humanity  at  large  by  virtue  of 
an  usurped  economic  power.  All  human  beings, 
presumably,  would  gain  by  freedom;  but  women 
particularly  stand  to  gain  by  it,  for  as  I have  shown, 
they  are  victims  of  special  prepossessions  which 
mere  legal  equality  with  men  may  hardly  be  ex- 
pected to  affect. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  dominance  that  they 
desire,  they  might,  indeed,  conceivably  attain  this 
without  freedom;  but  one  can  not  see  much  encour- 
agement for  that  wish  in  the  present  trend  of  affairs. 
Before  women  could  dominate,  they  would  not  only 


20  7 


208  Concerning  Women 

have  to  overcome  the  prejudices,  superstitions,  and 
legal  disabilities  which  have  contributed  to  their 
subjection;  but  they  would  also  have  to  get  the 
upper  hand  of  men  economically.  They  would 
have  to  manoeuvre  themselves  into  that  advantage 
in  opportunity  which  men  at  present  enjoy.  One 
can  hardly  see  how  this  could  be  brought  about  ex- 
cept by  some  kind  of  coup  d’etat,  for  the  tendency 
of  modern  legislation,  as  I have  shown,  far  from 
being  calculated  to  enlarge  the  scope  of  women’s 
economic  activity,  is  likely  rather  to  narrow  it;  nor 
is  it  entirely  probable  that  the  establishment  of 
mere  legal  equality  would  count  for  much  in  the 
premises,  for  the  courts  may  always  decide  that  any 
legislation  designed  for  the  Larger  Good  is  valid 
even  though  it  may  clash  with  the  principle  of  equal 
rights.1  Suppose,  however,  that  the  momentum 
gathered  by  the  woman’s  movement  should  carry 
society  through  a period  of  sex-equality  and  bring 
it  out  on  the  other  side — the  side  of  female  domina- 

1 Still,  putting  tlie  shoe  on  the  other  foot,  there  is  no  denying 
that  discriminative  legislation  based  on  the  Larger  Good  might  as 
well  serve  to  secure  to  women  privileges  which  would  lead  toward 
female  domination,  as  to  create  disabilities  which  would  keep  them 
at  a disadvantage  compared  with  men.  Even  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  has  been  known  to  reverse  itself. 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  209 

tion — then  men  and  women  would  simply  have  ex- 
changed places,  and  the  social  evils  which  now 
afflict  mankind  would  remain,  mutatis  mutandis. 
Women  would  be  more  nearly  free  than  men,  as 
men  are  now  more  nearly  free  than  women;  but  no 
one  would  be  really  free,  because  real  freedom  is 
not  a matter  of  the  shifting  of  advantage  from  one 
sex  to  the  other  or  from  one  class  to  another.  Real 
freedom  means  the  disappearance  of  advantage,  and 
primarily  of  economic  advantage.  It  can  not  be 
too  often  repeated  that  political  and  social  freedom 
are  unattainable  unless  and  until  economic  freedom 
has  been  attained — but  this  is  not  a concern  of 
either  sex  or  class.  In  order  to  live,  women,  like 
men,  must  eat;  to  eat,  they,  like  men,  must  labour; 
to  labour,  they,  like  men,  must  have  opportunity. 
Control  of  men’s  and  women’s  economic  opportu- 
nity, therefore,  means  control  of  their  livelihood,  and 
control  of  men’s  and  women’s  livelihood  means  con- 
trol of  men  and  women.  Real  freedom,  therefore, 
does  not  come  in  sight  of  either  men  or  women  until 
this  control  is  abated;  that  is  to  say,  until  (speaking 
in  technical  terms)  the  two  active  factors  in  pro- 
duction, capital  and  labour,  which  are  pro  tanto 


2io  Concerning  Women 

sexless,  have  free  access  to  the  passive  factor,  nat- 
ural resources — in  other  words,  until  the  private 
monopoly  of  natural  resources  is  dissolved. 

If  the  struggle  of  women  to  rid  themselves  of 
their  peculiar  disabilities  were  to  turn  out  into  an 
attempt  to  dominate  men  as  men  have  for  so  long 
dominated  women,  one  could  perfectly  understand 
the  psychology  behind  such  an  attempt.  With  the 
exception  of  a few  individuals,  humankind  has 
thus  far  achieved  no  very  high  idea  of  freedom. 
The  ambition  of  subject  classes  has  never  gone 
much  beyond  the  desire  to  enjoy  the  privileges 
usurped  by  their  masters.  They  have  resented  be- 
ing dominated,  but  not  domination;  they  have  had 
no  repugnance  to  the  thought  of  dominating  others. 
Their  psychology  was  very  well  summed  up  by 
Punch,  in  the  remark  of  one  old  market-woman  to 
another  (I  quote  from  memory):  “You  see,  Mrs. 

, when  we  have  a Labour  Government  we’ll  all 

be  equal,  and  then  I shall  have  a servant  to  do  my 
work  for  me.”  It  is  because  of  this  myopic  view 
of  the  nature  of  freedom  that  all  revolutions  have 
been  mere  scrambles  for  advantage,  and  have  ac- 
complished nothing  more  than  a shifting  of  power 
from  one  class  to  another,  or  as  John  Adams  said, 


What  Is  To  Be  Done 


21 1 


“a  mere  change  of  impostors.”  If  the  woman’s 
movement  should  resolve  itself  into  a similar  scram- 
ble, it  would  be  unfortunate  but  not  surprising,  for 
women  may  hardly  be  expected  to  rise  at  once  above 
the  retaliatory  spirit  which  is  one  of  the  common 
curses  of  humanity. 

They  would  have  good  ex  parte  arguments  ready 
to  their  tongue;  many  an  argument,  indeed,  which 
has  been  advanced  to  defend  their  subjection  might 
be  effectively  turned  around.  Their  part  in  parent- 
hood for  example,  has  long  been  held  to  justify 
their  subjection  under  the  guise  of  protection  in  this 
function.  It  would  be  equally  logical  to  argue  that 
women,  as  mothers  of  the  race,  should  dominate  the 
family  because,  as  givers  of  life,  they  have  a deeper 
personal  interest  and  a greater  natural  right  in  their 
children  than  men  have.  It  might  be  argued  that 
they  should  control  all  public  affairs  because  of  the 
greater  understanding  of  the  value  of  human  life 
and  deeper  interest  in  the  welfare  of  humanity  that 
motherhood  brings.  One  often  hears  the  argument 
— which  no  amount  of  female  bloodthirst  in  time 
of  war  ever  seems  to  make  effectively  ridiculous — 
that  if  women  were  in  powTer  there  would  be  no 
wars,  because  they,  knowing  the  cost  of  giving  life, 


212  Concerning  Women 

would  not  consent  to  its  wilful  wholesale  destruc- 
tion. The  doctrine  that  women  are  closer  to  the  race 
than  men  is  really  dangerous  to  those  who  now 
preach  it;  for  it  affords  the  best  kind  of  basis  for 
the  contention  that  women  should  dominate  in  all 
matters  concerning  the  race— and  all  human  affairs 
may  be  held  to  concern  the  race  in  one  way  or  an- 
other. 

Perhaps  the  best  argument  for  the  domination  of 
women  is  that  if  society,  like  parliamentary  govern- 
ment, must  for  ever  contemplate  a mere  sterile  suc- 
cession of  outs  and  ins,  it  is  time  that  women  had 
their  innings.  But  the  analogy  with  the  parlia- 
mentary system  goes  further.  Public  faith  in  the 
parliamentary  principle  has  waned  almost  to  the  dis- 
appearing-point, and  the  system  has  suffered  whole- 
sale discredit,  because  it  became  slowly  but  surely 
evident  that  what  actually  kept  them  up  was  “the 
cohesive  power  of  public  plunder.”  If  women 
took  what  might  be  called  by  analogy  the  political 
view  of  their  right  to  their  innings,  and  let  it  ani- 
mate them  in  a scuffle  for  predominance,  the  gen- 
eral reaction  would  be  similar.  In  a matter  of  this 
kind,  great  numbers  of  people  would  be  found  ob- 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  213 

jective  enough  to  glance  at  such  an  effort  and  pass 
it  by  in  disapproval  of  the  waste  of  energy  involved 
in  bringing  about  a readjustment  that  promised 
nothing  better  than  a shifting  of  the  incidence  of 
injustice.  Women  would  thus  forfeit  a great  deal 
of  sympathy,  and  at  the  same  time  probably  create 
even  more  antagonism  than  they  have  thus  far  had 
to  face.  They  would  place  themselves  in  a position 
similar  to  that  of  organized  labour,  which  is  so 
intent  on  contending  for  what  it  conceives  to  be  its 
own  interest — a position  of  advantage  in  bargain- 
ing on  wages  and  conditions  of  labour — that  by  the 
narrowness  of  its  policy  it  antagonizes  a great  deal 
of  public  sentiment  which  must  inevitably  be  en- 
listed on  its  behalf  if  it  undertook  to  contend  for 
the  general  interest,  in  which  its  own  is  included, 
and  in  the  service  of  which  its  own  is  bound,  in  the 
long  run,  to  be  best  served. 

What  the  nature  of  this  general  interest  is,  I 
have  already  intimated.  It  is  economic,  and  it  can 
be  advanced  only  through  the  establishment  of  an 
order  of  society  in  which  every  human  being  shall 
enjoy  the  natural  right  to  labour  and  to  enjoy  all 
that  his  labour  produces.  It  is  upon  mankind’s 


214  Concerning  Women 

security  in  this  right  that  human  freedom,  in  what- 
ever mode  or  aspect — social,  philosophical,  politi- 
cal, religious — primarily  depends. 

The  right  to  labour  and  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of 
one’s  labour  means  only  the  right  of  free  access  to 
the  source  of  subsistence,  which  is  land.1  If  access 
to  that  source  may  be  arbitrarily  denied,  the  right 
to  labour  is  denied,  and  the  opportunity  to  get  one’s 
living  becomes  a privilege  which  may  be  withheld 
or  granted  as  suits  the  need  or  convenience  of  the 
person  who  bestows  it,  and  wholly  on  his  own  terms. 
If  access  may  be  had  only  on  the  payment  of  trib- 
ute, the  condition  abrogates  the  right  to  enjoy  the 
fruit  of  one’s  labour,  for  the  tribute  consumes  a 
share  of  it. 

While  access  to  land  is  free,  no  one  need  know 
want;  for  he  may  always  get  his  living  by  apply- 
ing his  labour  to  natural  resources  “on  his  own.” 
He  may  always,  that  is,  work  for  himself  instead 
of  depending  for  his  living  on  the  chance  to  work 
for  an  employer.  Under  such  conditions,  more- 
over, no  one  need  content  himself,  as  the  labourer 
is  forced  to  content  himself  at  present,  with  a small 

1 Land,  that  is,  in  the  technical  economic  sense.  It  does  not 
mean  the  solid  part  of  the  earth’s  surface — earth  as  distinguished 
from  water.  It  means  the  sum-total  of  natural  resources. 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  215 

share  of  what  his  labour  produces,  for  as  Turgot 
pointed  out  a century  and  a half  ago,  he  can  always 
demand  of  an  employer  the  full  equivalent  of  what 
he  could  earn  by  working  for  himself.  It  is  clear 
that  under  such  an  economic  system,  the  share  of 
the  capitalist  in  any  product  would  amount  only 
to  a fair  competitive  return  on  his  actual  invest- 
ment. Under  the  present  system  the  capitalist 
often  enjoys  both  directly  and  indirectly  the  ad- 
vantage of  monopoly,  which  enables  him  to  appro- 
priate an  unfair  proportion  of  his  workers’  labour- 
product.  He  is  a direct  beneficiary  of  monopoly 
when  he  holds  legal  title  to  the  source  of  his  prod- 
uct— cultivable  land,  mines,  forests,  water-power 
— or  where  he  holds  franchises  or  profits  by  pro- 
tective tariffs  or  embargoes.  He  is  an  indirect 
beneficiary  when  he  profits  by  the  competition  for 
work  among  workers  whom  monopoly  has  deprived 
of  free  access  to  land.  The  steel-trust,  as  I have 
remarked,  is  a striking  example  of  a capitalist  or- 
ganization which  benefits  both  directly  and  indi- 
rectly by  monopoly.  On  the  one  hand,  it  monopo- 
lizes and  holds  out  of  access  vast  mining-properties, 
and  monopolizes  the  home  market  through  a pro- 
tective tariff.  On  the  other,  it  levies  tribute  on  la- 


2i6  Concerning  Women 

hour  by  virtue  of  the  scarcity  of  opportunity  created 
by  monopoly  in  general. 

Another  excellent  instance  of  this  dual  advan- 
tage is  furnished  by  the  railways  of  this  country. 
Not  only  have  they  received  governmental  land- 
grants  worth  enough  to  cover  their  construction- 
costs  many  times  over,  but  they  hold  a valuable 
franchise-monopoly  in  the  exclusive  right  to  do 
business  over  a long  continuous  strip  of  land 
called  their  “right  of  way”;  by  means  of  which 
monopoly  they  drain  the  commerce  of  a vast  area 
as  a river  drains  its  waters.  Through  the  enor- 
mous wealth  which  these  monopolies  have  enabled 
them  to  accumulate,  they  have  been  able  to  influ- 
ence governmental  policy  in  ways  designed  to  en- 
hance their  privileges;  for  example,  they  have  been 
able  to  curtail  water-transportation  and  thus  reduce 
competition.  They  have  profited  by  tariffs,  as 
through  the  emergency-law  some  years  ago,  which 
raised  the  tariff  on  wheat  just  enough  to  cover  the 
difference  between  the  cost  of  landing  a bushel  of 
wheat  from  the  Argentine  at  one  of  our  Eastern 
ports,  and  the  rate  for  transporting  it  by  railway 
from  our  Western  wheat-fields.  Through  the  In- 
terstate Commerce  Commission,  of  which  they  cap- 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  217 

lured  control  almost  as  soon  as  it  was  formed,  they 
are  allowed  to  levy  rates  which  represent  not  the 
cost  of  transportation  but  the  amount  which  can  be 
exacted  for  it.  So  much  for  their  direct  benefit 
from  monopoly.  Indirectly  they  benefit  in  the 
same  way  as  any  other  capitalist,  through  the  oppor- 
tunity to  exploit  a labour-surplus  created  and 
maintained  by  monopoly;  and  while  they  are  some- 
what hindered  in  making  the  most  of  this  oppor- 
tunity by  the  effectiveness  of  defensive  organiza- 
tion among  their  skilled  employees,  they  have  a 
pretty  free  hand  with  their  thousands  of  unskilled 
workers,  and  manage  on  the  whole  to  do  very  well 
out  of  them. 

Even  where  the  capitalist  is  not  himself  to  any 
significant  extent  a monopolist,,  he  derives  great 
benefit  from  monopoly,  for  it  is  thanks  to  the  mo- 
nopolist of  natural  resources  that  he  is  able  to  keep 
labourers  at,  or  very  near,  the  margin  of  subsistence. 
He  is  not  always,  however,  undisturbed  in  the  en- 
joyment of  his  advantage;  for  he  may  be  himself 
quite  as  much  at  the  mercy  of  monopoly  as  the 
workers  he  exploits.  The  tenant-farmer  affords  an 
excellent  example  of  this.  He  is  the  capitalist  in 
the  farming-industry,  who  pays  to  the  land-monop- 


218  Concerning  Women 

olist  tribute  in  the  form  of  rent,  to  the  railways 
tribute  in  exorbitant  freight-rates  on  his  imple- 
ments and  products,  to  the  manufacturers  of  his 
implements  tribute  in  the  form  of  tariffs.  He  fur- 
nishes the  capital  necessary  for  operating  the  farm, 
pays  the  wages  of  such  labour  as  he  may  require, 
and  takes  for  himself  what  is  left  after  all  these 
charges  have  been  met,  which  in  this  country  is  so 
little  that  it  does  not  suffice  to  pay  him  both  interest 
on  his  capital  and  wages  for  his  own  labour — a 
condition  which  explains  the  steady  drift  of  our  pop- 
ulation from  the  farms  to  the  cities,  and  which  also 
accounts  for  the  extraordinary  fact  that  agriculture, 
which  is  in  volume  our  greatest  industry  is,  qua  in- 
dustry, bankrupt.  All  the  money  in  farming  is 
now,  and  for  some  time  has  been,  in  the  rise  of  land- 
values.  It  is  evident,  then,  that  save  where  capital 
and  monopoly  are  united,  capital  as  well  as  labour 
is  victimized  by  monopoly.  This  is  one  of  the  most 
important  facts  of  our  system,  and  almost  every- 
one overlooks  it.  The  whole  producing  organi- 
zation is  levied  upon  by  a power  which  itself  per- 
forms no  service  whatever  in  return  for  the  wealth 
that  it  appropriates;  which  is,  on  the  contrary,  an  in- 
cubus on  the  producing  organization.  To  put  this 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  219 

statement  more  clearly,  the  monopolist,  whose  con- 
trol of  the  sources  of  production  makes  his  exactions 
inescapable,  is  limited  in  those  exactions  only  by  the 
amount  that  the  traffic  will  bear.  If  a condition 
arises  which  makes  a certain  kind  of  production  es- 
pecially desirable,  there  will  naturally  be  a pressure 
of  people  desiring  to  undertake  that  kind  of  produc- 
tion, and  the  monopolist  who  controls  its  source  will 
exact  in  payment  for  access  to  that  source  an  amount 
fixed  by  the  number  of  competitors  seeking  access. 
He  is  thus  able  to  absorb  all  the  returns  of  the  in- 
dustry which  depends  on  his  monopoly,  except  just 
so  much  as  is  necessary  to  encourage  people  to  keep 
on  with  it.  For  example,  during  the  war  the  own- 
ers of  our  Western  wheat-lands,  who  had  been  de- 
manding one-third  of  the  crop  in  rent,  raised  the 
amount  to  two-fifths,  because  at  the  price  fixed  by 
the  Government  wheat-growing  was  profitable  and 
there  were  many  would-be  producers  seeking  access 
to  wheat-lands.  The  same  condition  was  reflected 
in  the  selling  price  of  land.  Farms  were  sold  and 
resold  at  advancing  prices  until  land  that  had  sold 
before  the  war  for  sixty-five  dollars  an  acre  was 
bringing  two  hundred.  During  the  period  of  de- 
flation thousands  of  acres  bought  on  mortgages 


220  Concerning  Women 

reverted  from  one  buyer  to  another  until  the  original 
owner  had  back  his  land  plus  whatever  profit  he 
had  had  from  its  sale.  All  this  raising  of  rents  and 
this  buying  and  selling  at  inflated  prices,  did  nothing 
for  production,  obviously,  except  to  drain  off  the 
lion’s  share  of  its  proceeds  into  the  pocket  of  the 
monopolist;  for  all  speculative  values  must  necessar- 
ily be  paid  finally  out  of  production,  since  there  is  no 
other  source  for  them  to  come  from.  The  produc- 
ing organization  thus  carries  an  enormous  load  of 
people  who  draw  their  living  from  it  and  give  neither 
goods  nor  services  in  return ; who  live,  that  is  to  say, 
by  appropriating  the  labour-products  of  others  with- 
out compensation — in  other  words,  by  legalized 
theft. 

As  monopoly  extends  and  tightens  its  grip  on  the 
sources  of  production,  it  is  enabled  to  exact  an  in- 
creasing share  of  the  proceeds,  until  the  point  is 
reached  where  industry  can  no  longer  meet  its  de- 
mands and  continue  to  pay  interest  and  wages.  For 
example,  so  long  as  this  country  had  a frontier,  the 
monopolist  was  in  no  position  to  exact  a very  great 
share  of  production,  for  the  producer  had  the  alter- 
native of  pushing  on  to  the  margin  of  cultivation 
where  there  were  as  yet  no  landlords  to  support. 


What  Is  To  Be  Done 


221 


The  monopolist,  therefore,  could  exact  no  more  than 
the  difference  between  what  a man  might  earn  in  a 
sparsely  settled  country,  remote  from  markets,  and 
what  he  could  earn  by  carrying  on  production  in  a 
more  thickly  settled  and  more  nearly  monopolized 
region.  So  long  as  this  condition  endured,  produc- 
tion in  this  country  was  able  to  pay  tribute  to  monop- 
oly and  still  pay  the  capitalist  a fairly  good  rate  of 
interest  and  the  labourer  a fairly  good  wage.  But 
since  the  late  nineteenth  century,  when  the  frontier 
was  closed,  all  the  best  of  the  country’s  land  and 
natural  resources  being  legally  occupied,  monopoly 
has  been  able  to  exact  an  ever  greater  share  of  pro- 
duction; for  while  monopoly  progresses,  the  popula- 
tion grows,  and  competitive  demand  for  access  to 
the  source  of  production  increases;  and  these  two 
causes  combine  to  cut  down  free  economic  opportu- 
nity to  the  disappearing  point.  Thus  it  seems  only  a 
matter  of  time  until  production  will  break  down 
under  the  exactions  of  monopoly  and  revolution  and 
readjustment  will  follow.  The  breakdown  has  al- 
ready begun  in  the  basic  industry,  agriculture,  for, 
as  I have  stated  above,  the  tenant  farmer  is  no  longer 
able  to  meet  the  charges  of  monopoly  and  still  earn 
interest  and  wages.  Therefore  our  agrarian  popu- 


222  Concerning  Women 

lation,  literally  starved  off  the  land,  is  steadily  drift- 
ing to  the  cities,  to  swell  the  numbers  of  workers  who 
crowd  the  industrial  labour-market.  This  is  to  say 
that  our  civilization  is  dying  at  the  root;  and  this 
having  presently  grown  too  rotten  to  nourish  it  or 
support  it,  a little  wind  of  revolution  or  foreign  in- 
vasion will  one  day  overturn  it,  as  all  civilizations 
which  have  hitherto  existed  have  been  overturned  by 
the  same  cause.  “Latifundia,”  said  Pliny,  “per- 
diderunt  Romam.” 

This  same  economic  system  exists  in  all  the  great 
countries  of  the  world  save  Russia,  where  it  broke 
down  under  the  Czarist  regime  and  has  not  been 
re-established.  It  is  farther  advanced  in  the  coun- 
tries of  the  old  world  than  it  is  here,  because  this 
country  is  more  recently  settled.  This  fact  con- 
stitutes the  only  difference  between  the  economic 
order  in  the  old  world  and  that  in  the  new — a dif- 
ference in  the  degree  that  exploitation  has  reached. 

Wherever  exploitation  exists,  whether  in  the  new 
world  or  the  old,  it  exists  by  means  of  a governmen- 
tal organization  which  its  beneficiaries  control  and 
use  to  protect  their  privileges  against  the  expro- 
priated and  exploited  masses.  There  is  general 
agreement  among  scholars  that  in  government,  ex- 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  223 

ploitation  came  first,  and  what  we  know  as  law  and 
order  are  its  incidental  by-products;  and  that  how- 
ever far  the  development  of  these  by-products  may 
go,  they  are  never  allowed  to  interfere  with  exploita- 
tion. “The  State,”  says  Oppenheimer,  “grew  from 
the  subjugation  of  one  group  of  men  by  another. 
Its  basic  justification,  its  raison  d’etre,  was  and  is 
the  economic  exploitation  of  those  subjugated.” 
Both  the  origin  and  the  essential  nature  of  the  State 
remain  perfectly  clear  so  long  as  the  conquering 
class  remains  distinct  from  the  subject  classes  and 
keeps  these  in  a state  of  vassalage,  without  freedom 
of  movement,  and  subject  to  transfer  from  one  owner 
to  another  along  with  the  land  on  which  they  dwell. 
In  our  own  age,  they  are  quite  evident  in  the  deal- 
ings of  the  Western  powers  with  weak  peoples,  as  in 
India  or  the  Philippine  Islands,  or  the  mandated 
territories  under  the  League  of  Nations,  where  for- 
eign Governments,  through  their  military  organiza- 
tions, protect  their  nationals  in  an  economic  exploita- 
tion of  the  native  population,  and  themselves  levy 
taxes  upon  the  natives  to  pay  the  costs  of  the  pro- 
cess. The  nature  and  purpose  of  the  State  are  clear, 
indeed,  in  any  community  where  the  owning  and 
exploiting  class  exercises  direct  control  over  the 


224  Concerning  Women 

propertyless  dependent  classes  as  more  or  less  chat- 
tels. The  landed  aristocracy  of  Europe  formerly 
exercised  this  direct  control,  as  their  titles,  now 
grown  meaningless,  indicate. 

But  where  the  form  of  the  State  has  undergone 
a change  which  precludes  this  direct  control  by  the 
owning  class,  the  nature  of  the, State,  and  its  es- 
sential function,  are  obscured.  Under  the  republi- 
canism which  succeeded  the  American  and  French 
revolutions,  the  expropriated  classes  have  gained 
freedom  of  movement,  a limited  freedom  of  opinion, 
and  a nominal  share  in  the  exercise  of  government. 
The  peasant  is  no  longer  bound  to  the  soil  he  tills; 
he  may  leave  it  at  will  to  seek  his  fortune  elsewhere 
— on  the  terms  of  another  landlord.  The  owning 
classes  no  longer  directly  exercise  government  or 
directly  enjoy  honours  and  titles  by  virtue  of  owner- 
ship. The  peoples  of  the  Western  world,  at  least 
where  parliamentarism  has  not  broken  down,  have  a 
nominal  freedom  with  little  of  the  reality.  Nomi- 
nal freedom  of  movement  is  worth  little  to  the  man 
who  faces  the  alternative  of  being  exploited  where  he 
is,  or  being  exploited  elsewhere.  Nominal  freedom 
of  opinion  is  not  extremely  valuable  when  expres- 
sion of  opinion  may  cost  one  the  opportunity  to  earn 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  225 

one’s  living;  and  the  right  to  vote  offers  little  satis- 
faction when  it  means  merely  a right  of  choice  be- 
tween rival  parties  and  candidates  representing 
exactly  the  same  system  of  economic  exploitation. 

The  political  revolution  which  followed  the  break- 
down of  feudalism  did  the  world  its  greatest  service 
in  launching  the  idea  of  freedom;  it  did  nothing — 
or  relatively  very  little — for  its  substance.  Through 
its  agency  the  equal  right  of  all  human  beings  to 
“life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness”  has  come 
to  be  granted  in  theory  though  not  in  fact;  it  re- 
mained for  the  Russian  Revolution  to  proclaim  the 
further  idea  that  the  basis  of  this  right  is  not  politi- 
cal but  economic.  The  political  revolution  did  more ; 
by  establishing  political  democracy,  it  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  people  the  power  to  achieve  eco- 
nomic democracy  by  peaceful  means.  But  by 
that  very  act  it  obscured  the  essential  function  of  the 
State  and  the  source  of  its  power,  which  remained 
clear  as  long  as  those  who  owned  ruled  directly  by 
virtue  of  ownership;  and  thus  it  hindered  a clear 
perception  of  the  causal  relation  between  privilege 
and  slavery.  By  abolishing  hereditary  power,  it 
effected  a redistribution  of  privilege,  and  at  the  same 
time  forced  privilege  to  exercise  its  control  of  gov- 


226  Concerning  Women 

ernment  by  indirect  means.  Privilege  wds  no  longer 
seated  on  the  throne,  but  it  remained,  through  its 
control  of  economic  opportunity,  the  power  behind 
the  throne;  1 a power  all  the  more  difficult  to  dis- 
lodge now  that  it  exercised  control  without  assuming 
responsibility.  Republicanism  has  proved  the  futil- 
ity of  dislodging  a privileged  class  without  abolish- 
ing privilege;  for  this  simply  prepares  the  way  for 
the  rise  of  a new  privileged  class  which  will  use 
government  to  enforce  its  exploitation  of  the  prop- 
ertyless class,  in  a different  way,  perhaps,  but  quite 
as  effectively  as  its  predecessors. 

The  psychological  effect  of  the  political  equality 
established  under  republicanism  is  extremely  de- 
moralizing. As  I have  remarked,  the  subject  classes 
have  never  desired  freedom  so  much  as  a chance  at 
the  privileges  that  they  see  other  people  enjoy. 
Political  equality,  with  its  breaking-down  of  class 
distinctions,  creates  an  impression  of  equality  of 
opportunity — and  indeed  to  the  extent  that  govern- 
ment maintains  no  disabling  legal  discriminations 

1 It  is  hardly  necessary  to  go  into  the  methods  by  which  this 
control  is  exercised.  In  a country  where  government  is  elected,  as 
in  this,  privilege  controls  through  its  contribution  to  party-funds, 
through  bribery,  through  economic  pressure,  and  all  the  other  means 
which  its  control  of  economic  opportunity  puts  at  its  disposal. 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  227 

among  members  of  the  enfranchised  class,1  it  ac- 
tually establishes  equality.  No  member  of  that  class 
is  excluded  from  the  benefits  of  privilege  by  any- 
thing save  his  inability  to  get  possession  of  it;  and 
this  fact,  especially  in  a country  where  opportunity 
is  comparatively  plentiful,  is  more  likely  to  confirm 
people  in  their  loyalty  to  a system  under  which  they 
stand  even  a dog’s  chance  to  become  beneficiaries 
of  privilege,  than  it  is  to  stimulate  an  endeavour  to 
abolish  privilege  altogether.  In  this  country  the 
incalculable  richness  of  natural  resources  and  the 
enormous  wealth  to  be  gained  by  speculative  enter- 
prise under  a government  which  gives  full  rein  to 
monopoly,  contributed  immensely  to  the  corruption 
of  the  citizenry.  Speculation  became  the  normal 
course  of  enterprise,  the  most  approved  method  of 
money-getting;  and  the  more  ruinously  did  the 
monopolist  exploit  the  country’s  resources,  as  Mr. 
Veblen  has  pointed  out,  the  greater  the  regard  in 
which  he  was  held  by  his  fellow  citizens.  Never 
before  in  the  world’s  history  had  so  many  people  a 
chance  at  the  enjoyment  of  privilege  as  in  the  pioneer 

1 Women  and  slaves  were  discriminated  against  in  this  country ; 
and  in  the  State  of  California  today,  no  person  incapable  of  citizen- 
ship may  hold  land — a provision  which  excludes  Japanese  and 
Chinese. 


228  Concerning  Women 

period  of  American  development.  The  country’s  re- 
sources were  gutted  for  profit,  not  developed  for  use. 
The  use-value  of  land  was  incidental  to  its  value  as 
real  estate.  Every  farmer  became  a speculator,  and 
consequently  the  margin  of  cultivation,  instead  of 
being  pushed  out  gradually  in  response  to  the  nat- 
ural increase  in  the  country’s  needs,  was  extended 
artificially  and  with  extreme  rapidity,  with  the  result 
that  farms  were  miles  apart  and  unnecessary  dif- 
ficulties in  marketing,  and  in  the  maintenance  of 
education  and  social  life,  were  created.  The  coun- 
try resembled  the  modem  city-addition  of  the  real- 
estater,  with  all  the  framework  of  settlement,  wait- 
ing for  the  pressure  of  population  to  enhance  the 
selling-price  of  land.  Not  only  was  the  public  mind 
corrupted  by  the  apparently  limitless  opportunity 
to  enjoy  privilege — not  only  was  speculation  con- 
fused with  production — but  all  this  opportunity  was 
blindly  attributed  to  the  blessings  of  republicanism. 
“The  greatest  government  on  earth”  came  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  guardian  of  free  opportunity  for  all 
citizens,  in  spite  of  the  very  evident  fact  that  no  gov- 
ernment which  protects  land-monopoly  can  possibly 
maintain  freedom  of  opportunity,  for  in  the  course 
of  monopoly  all  available  natural  resources  are 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  229 

shortly  pre-empted,  and  those  people  who  are  born 
after  occupation  is  complete  will  find  nothing  left  to 
pre-empt.  Thus  American  patriotism  took  on  a re- 
ligious fervour,  and  the  corruption  of  the  populace 
was  complete. 

The  rise  of  industrialism  has  done  as  much  as 
anything  else  to  engender  misapprehension  of  the 
State’s  essential  nature,  its  chief  function,  and  the 
source  of  its  power.  It  is  significant  that  the  Phy- 
siocrats lived  and  observed  the  workings  of  the  State 
before  the  industrial  era,  in  an  agricultural  country, 
where  the  relation  between  land-monopoly  and  gov- 
ernment was  direct  and  inescapable;  and  that  Karl 
Marx  lived  and  wrote  after  the  rise  of  the  factory- 
system,  in  a highly  industrialized  country.  The 
Physiocrats,  for  whom  the  basic  economic  problem 
was  unobscured,  therefore  attributed  involuntary 
poverty  to  its  actual  cause;  while  Marx,  confusing 
capital’s  fortuitous  advantage  from  monopoly  with 
monopoly  itself,  laid  the  responsibility  at  the  door 
of  capitalism.  To  be  sure,  Marx  recognized  and 
stated  the  fact  that  expropriation  must  precede  ex- 
ploitation; but  he  did  not  draw  the  obvious  con- 
clusion that  the  way  to  break  capital’s  power  to  ex- 
ploit the  worker  is  by  simple  reimpropriation.  At 


230  Concerning  Women 

present  there  is  a general  impression  that  the  factory- 
system  lured  the  population  into  the  cities,  and  thus 
caused  the  overcrowding  that  results  in  scarcity  of 
jobs  and  inadequacy  of  wage.  As  a matter  of  fact, 
the  factory-system  found  the  cities  already  over- 
crowded with  exploitable  labour.  In  England,  for 
example,  the  Enclosures  Acts  had  deprived  the  peo- 
ple of  what  common  land  remained  to  them,  and  had 
driven  them  into  the  cities  where  they  lived  in  incon- 
ceivable filth  and  squalor,  eking  out  a miserable 
existence  under  the  old  family-system  of  industry. 
The  machine-system  found  all  this  expropriated  and 
exploitable  human  material  ready  to  serve  its  ends 
— far  more,  indeed,  than  it  needed,  as  the  riots 
among  the  workers  deprived  of  their  livelihood  by 
its  labour-saving  tools,  plainly  indicated.  The  in- 
dustrial revolution,  then,  did  not  produce  the  over- 
crowding of  the  labour-market;  but  the  capitalist  of 
the  revolution  profited  by  an  overcrowding  that  al- 
ready existed.  He  reaped  indirectly  the  fruits  of 
monopoly.  He  profited  likewise,  and  profits  still, 
by  every  labour-saving  device,  for  it  enabled  him  at 
once  to  dispense  with  some  labourers  and,  because 
of  the  increase  of  unemployment  thus  caused,  to 
pay  his  remaining  workers  less.  Capital  was  thus 


What  1$  To  Be  Done  231 

enabled  to  appropriate  much  more  than  its  rightful 
share  of  production,  and  hence  to  amass  enormous 
wealth,  by  means  of  which  it  influenced  govern- 
ment on  behalf  of  its  own  further  enrichment.  In 
this  country,  it  has  secured  a system  of  protective 
tariffs  which  amount  to  a governmental  delegation 
of  taxing-power  to  the  protected  industries;  it  gives 
them  a monopoly  of  the  home-market  and  enables 
them  to  add  to  the  price  of  their  product  the  amount 
of  the  tariff  which  has  been  set  against  the  com- 
peting foreign  article.  Capital  has  found  other 
ways  of  creating  monopolies,  such  as  the  combina- 
tions in  restraint  of  trade  at  which  the  ineffectual 
Sherman  law  was  levelled.  As  the  exactions  of 
monopoly  increase,  and  the  exploitation  of  labour 
nears  the  point  of  diminishing  return,  the  capitalist- 
monopolist  embarks,  wTith  the  protection  of  govern- 
ment, on  a policy  of  economic  imperialism.  He 
monopolizes  the  markets  of  weak  nations  at  the 
point  of  his  Government’s  bayonets.  He  invests  in 
foreign  enterprises  which  offer  high  returns  for  him- 
self and  risk  of  war  for  the  Government  which  backs 
him — that  is  to  say,  for  the  exploited  masses  at 
home  who  must  support  the  Government  and  fur- 
nish its  soldiers.  In  short,  he  constitutes  himself  a 


232  Concerning  Women 

menace  to  peace  and  prosperity  both  at  home  and 
abroad ; so  that  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  people 
observing  his  sinister  activities,  take  capital  to  be  the 
cause  of  the  economic  injustice  from  which  it  derives 
its  power.  Yet,  if  natural  resources  were  put  freely 
in  competition  with  industry  for  the  employment  of 
labour,  the  inflamed  fortunes  of  the  capitalist  class 
would  disappear.  Monoply  having  been  abol- 
ished,1 the  capitalist-monopolist  would  no  longer 
exist,  and  the  capitalist  would  no  longer  be  in  a 
position  to  exact  from  production  anything  more 
than  his  rightful  interest — that  is,  as  I have  said, 
the  amount  fixed  by  free  competitive  demand  for  the 
use  of  his  capital. 

There  is  yet  another  cause  of  confusion  in  the 
long-established  custom  of  regarding  land  as  private 
property,  whereas  it  is  not,  rightly  speaking,  private 
property  at  all,  but  the  source  from  which  property 

1 A great  deal  is  said  about  credit-monopoly,  as  if  it  were  some- 
thing requiring  a new  and  special  kind  of  instrument  to  break  up. 
But  what  is  credit?  Merely  a device  for  facilitating  the  exchange 
of  wealth,  arid  all  wealth  is  produced  from  land.  The  break-up 
of  land-monopoly  would  therefore  at  once  break  up  credit-monopoly. 
Or,  putting  it  in  another  way,  the  one  and  only  imperishable  secu- 
rity is  land — all  other  forms  of  security  finally  run  back  to  it.  The 
break-up  of  land-monopoly  would  therefore  break  up  the  monopoly 
of  all  the  secondary  and  derived  forms  of  security  upon  which  credit 
could  be  based. 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  233 

is  produced  by  the  combined  efforts  of  labour  and 
capital.  The  right  to  property  in  wealth  which  has 
been  produced,  as,  for  instance,  the  coat  on  one’s 
back,  may  be  defended  on  the  ground  that  it  is  the 
product  of  one’s  own  labour,  or  has  been  acquired 
through  exchange  of  an  equivalent  amount  of  one’s 
own  product;  but  the  right  to  property  in  land  can 
not  be  defended  on  the  same  ground,  because  land 
is  not  a labour-product.  The  distinction  is  sim- 
ply between  labour-made  property  and  law-made 
property.  Under  our  present  system  of  tenure,  to 
be  sure,  the  purchase  price  of  land — that  is,  the  in- 
vestment of  capital  that  the  owner  has  made  in 
order  to  get  title — may  represent  human  labour — 
but  this  is  merely  to  say  that  the  owner  has  invested 
his  capital  in  privilege,  or  law-made  property;  that 
he  has  purchased,  under  governmental  guarantee,  a 
certain  delegation  of  taxing-power,  precisely  as  the 
investor  in  governmental  securities  purchases  a 
governmental  guarantee  that  a certain  share  of  fu- 
ture labour-products  will  be  taken  from  the  pro- 
ducers and  turned  over  to  him.  The  fact  that, 
under  political  government,  capital  may  be  invested, 
in  privilege  in  no  wise  alters  the  iniquitous  nature  of 
privilege,  and  a sound  public  policy  would  disallow 


234  Concerning  Women 

an  investor’s  plea  of  good  faith  ex  post  facto.1  Un- 
der a system  which  did  not  permit  such  investments, 
those  people  who  wished  to  put  their  capital  to  gain- 
ful use  wTould  invest  it  in  the  only  legitimate  way, 
which  is  in  productive  enterprise. 

It  is,  perhaps,  partly  because  of  the  confusion  of 
thought  produced  by  all  these  causes,  that  no  revolu- 
tion has  ever  abolished  the  exploiting  State  and  the 
privileges  that  it  exists  to  secure.  But  it  must  also 
be  remembered  that  all  revolutions  have  risen  out  of 
factional  disputes  or  class-wars,  and  that  in  the  lat- 
ter case,  the  chief  interest  of  the  revolting  class  has 
been  not  to  abolish  privilege  but  to  redistribute  it. 
The  French  Revolution,  for  instance,  expropriated 
the  land-owning  nobility,  but  its  politicians  dared 
not  abolish  private  land-monopoly,  for  the  bourge- 
oisie which  supported  the  revolution  would  not  have 
tolerated  such  an  interference  with  their  own  en- 
joyment of  privilege.  In  one  important  respect  the 
Russian  Revolution  is  an  exception  to  this  rule.  It 
is  a class-revolution,  but  its  avowed  ultimate  purpose 

1 There  is  recent  precedent  for  this  in  American  law.  Under  the 
XVIII  Amendment  and  the  Volstead  Act,  the  Federal  Government 
confiscated  ex  post  facto  without  a penny  of  compensation  hundreds 
of  millions  invested  in  the  liquor  business.  All  this,  too,  was  in 
labour-made  property,  not  in  law-made  property,  which  greatly 
strengthens  the  precedent. 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  235 

is  to  abolish  even  that  State-organization  which  it- 
self at  present  maintains.1  It  is  too  early  for  any 
forecast  to  be  made  concerning  the  outcome  of  this 
attempt;  but  whether  it  succeeds  or  not,  the  Russian 
Revolution  has  already  performed  an  inestimable 
service  to  the  world  in  proclaiming  that  the  nature  of 
freedom  is  not  political  but  economic,  and  in  refus- 
ing, as  a State-organization,  to  use  its  power  for  the 
maintenance  of  an  idle,  rent-consuming  class,  living 
by  the  exploitation  of  labour  at  home  or  in  spheres  of 
influence  abroad. 

In  order  to  abolish  privilege  it  is  not  necessary,  in 
a political  democracy,  to  wait  for  the  economic 
breakdown  which  its  exactions  inevitably  bring 
about — that  is  to  say,  it  is  not  necessary  to  wait  un- 
til the  number  of  wasteful  idlers  that  production 
must  support  shall  become  so  numerous  and  so 
wasteful  that  it  can  no  longer  meet  their  exactions. 
The  ballot  has  been  a pretty  ineffectual  weapon  in 
the  hands  of  the  rank  and  file,  but — so  much  must 
be  said  for  republicanism — it  could  be  made  ef- 
fective. First,  however,  the  rank  and  file  would 


1 The  Constitution  of  one  of  the  Soviet  Republics — I think  it  is 
Georgia — begins  something  after  this  fashion:  “It  is  the  purpose  of 
this  Government  to  abolish  government.” 


236  Concerning  Women 

have  to  learn  what  it  is  that  this  weapon  should  be 
used  against — it  would  have  to  become  aware  of  the 
nature  of  real  freedom,  and  to  wish  real  freedom  to 
prevail.  The  power  of  privilege  under  republican- 
ism depends  not  only  on  its  control  of  wealth,  but 
much  more  upon  its  control  of  thought  and  opinion. 
That  a campaign  of  education  among  the  voters  can 
seriously  endanger  the  position  of  privilege  was 
proved  in  England  during  the  great  land-values 
campaign  of  1914,  which  was  cut  short  by  the  war. 
But  the  task  of  education  is  not  easy,  because  of  the 
conditions  I have  just  been  discussing,  which  obscure 
the  essential  nature  of  privilege,  and  of  the  State. 
We  have  had  in  this  country  a great  deal  of  outcry 
against  privilege,  and  it  has  aroused  considerable 
popular  sympathy;  but  the  zeal  engendered  thereby 
has  not  advanced  the  cause  of  freedom,  because  the 
outcry  was  directed  against  the  capitalist  and  the 
exploiting  power  gained  by  his  fortuitous  advantage 
from  privilege,  but  not  against  privilege  itself.  The 
nature  of  privilege  was  obscured.  It  is  evidently 
necessary,  then,  if  the  ballot  is  ever  to  be  successfully 
employed  against  privilege,  to  know  what  privilege 
means  and  to  clear  away  all  confusion  about  it, 
so  that  the  voters  may  see  what  is  at  fault  in  our 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  237 

economic  system,  and  what  remedial  steps  are  neces- 
sary. 

The  essential  nature  of  freedom  has  been  already 
shown.  It  comes  out  in  the  abolition  of  monopoly, 
primarily  monopoly  of  natural  resources,  resulting 
in  complete  freedom  of  the  individual  to  apply  his 
productive  labour  where  he  will.  It  is  freedom  to 
produce,  and  its  corollary,  freedom  to  exchange — 
the  laissez-faire,  laissez-passer  of  the  Physiocrats. 
How  this  freedom  is  to  be  obtained  is  not  for  me  to 
say.  I am  not  a propagandist,  nor  do  I regard  the 
question  as  at  present  so  important  as  that  of  estab- 
lishing a clear  understanding  of  the  nature  of  free- 
dom. When  enough  people  come  to  see  that  the  root 
of  all  bondage,  economic,  political,  social — even  the 
bondage  of  superstition  and  taboo — is  expropriation, 
reimpropriation  will  not  be  long  in  following;  and 
it  may  be  achieved  by  a method  quite  different  from 
all  those  which  theorists  have  thus  far  devised. 
When  people  know  what  they  need,  they  are  usually 
pretty  resourceful  about  finding  means  to  get  it;  and 
so  long  as  they  do  not  know  what  they  need,  all  the 
means  of  securing  it  that  can  be  suggested,  however 
excellent,  must  remain  ineffective  from  the  lack  of 
sufficient  will  to  use  them. 


23§ 


Concerning  Women 


II 

In  the  foregoing  chapters  I have  spoken  of  the 
effect  that  freedom  would  have  upon  this  or  that 
phase  of  human  relations.  There  is  really  no  field 
of  human  activity  that  would  not  be  profoundly  af- 
fected by  it.  A system  of  free  economic  opportu- 
nity would  exert  upon  the  lives  of  human  beings  pre- 
cisely as  great  an  influence  as  that  exerted  by  the 
present  economic  system : that  is  to  say,  their  mode 
of  life,  their  education,  their  quality  of  spirit,  their 
cast  of  thought,  would  all  be  determined  by  their 
command  of  wealth,  precisely  as  they  now  are.  But 
where  the  present  economic  system  operates  to  place 
the  great  mass  of  wealth  at  the  command  of  a very 
small  percentage  of  the  population  and  thus  to  keep 
the  majority  in  an  involuntary  and  oppressive  pov- 
erty unfavourably  affecting  body,  mind  and  spirit 
in  a thousand  ways,  a system  of  free  opportunity 
would  place  in  the  hands  of  every  human  being  all 
the  wealth  that  his  labour,  freely  employed,  could 
produce,  and  at  the  same  time  it  would  relieve  pro- 
ductive labour  from  the  heavy  burden  of  privilege. 
Thus  that  huge  share  of  wealth  which  now  goes  to 
maintain  the  privileged  classes  in  luxurious  idleness, 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  239 

and  that  further  huge  share  which  supports  vast 
bureaucracies  and  keeps  up  armies  and  navies  to  se- 
cure the  foreign  investments  of  the  privileged  classes, 
would  be  diverted  to  its  proper  use.  The  number  of 
workers  would  be  augmented  by  all  those  privilegees 
and  placeholders  who  now  live  without  producing ; 1 
but  opportunity  would  be  increased  in  infinitely 
greater  proportion ; therefore  these  newcomers  would 
find  no  difficulty  in  supporting  themselves.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  immense  reduction  in  luxury  and 
waste  thus  brought  about  would  very  much  shorten 
the  hours  of  labour.  The  worker  whose  labour,  in 
addition  to  maintaining  himself  and  his  dependents, 
is  supporting  two  or  three  idlers  and  paying  for  a 
share  of  governmental  waste  besides,  must  neces- 
sarily spend  many  more  hours  at  work  than  the 
worker  whose  exertions  are  required  only  for  the  sup- 
port of  himself  and  his  natural  dependents.  But 
while  the  labour  of  each  producer  would  decrease, 
production  would  be  increased  by  the  opening  of  new 
opportunities,  by  the  increase  in  number  of  the  pro- 
ducers, and  by  the  enhanced  power  of  consumption 

1 The  political  placeholder  must  not  be  confused  with  those  work- 
ers in  business,  industry,  or  the  arts  who  are  not  manual  labourers, 
but  perform  valid  services  which  are  exchangeable  for  wealth  and 
justify  their  being  accounted  productive  workers. 


240  Concerning  Women 

made  possible  through  their  greater  command  of 
wealth.  The  redistribution  which  would  follow 
upon  the  establishment  of  free  opportunity,  and  the 
curtailment  of  waste,  would  satisfy  a share  of  this 
new  demand;  but  just  as  production  and  exchange, 
in  a period  of  comparative  prosperity  at  present,  are 
stimulated  by  the  increased  consuming  power  of  the 
public,  so,  when  artificial  restrictions  on  production 
had  been  removed,  the  increased  power  of  consump- 
tion which  would  result  would  act  as  a permanent 
stimulus  to  production  and  exchange. 

I will  not  speculate  about  the  conditions  arising 
during  the  period  of  adjustment  to  the  new  condi- 
tions of  economic  freedom.  If  bad,  they  would  be 
but  temporary,  and  though  they  are  often  magnified 
as  arguments  against  freedom  by  those  who  either 
can  not  or  do  not  wish  to  see  beyond  them,  they  have 
no  proper  place  in  this  discussion,  which  is  concerned 
only  with  the  permanent  effect  of  free  opportunity 
on  the  lives,  spirits  and  minds  of  human  beings. 
It  may  be  doubted  that  the  intercalary  hardships  of 
the  transition  would  be  great;  but  if  they  were  to  be 
twice  as  great  as  the  most  timorous  would  forecast 
them,  would  they  not  be  preferable  to  those  attend- 
ing the  protraction  of  the  present  system  to  its  in- 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  241 

evitable  break-up?  That  is  the  real  question. 
Thomas  Jefferson  said  that  rather  than  the  French 
Revolution  should  fail,  he  would  see  half  Europe 
perish,  and  “though  but  an  Adam  and  Eve  were  left 
in  every  country,  and  left  free,  it  would  be  better 
than  it  is  now.” 

Who  can  picture  the  profound  alteration  in  the 
attitude  of  people  toward  life  and  their  fellow- 
beings,  if  they  were  but  emancipated  from  the  fear 
of  want  which  now  besets  all  of  humankind?  Even 
the  rich  and  the  well-to-do  are  not  exempt  from  this 
fear;  for  an  economic  security  based  on  an  unsound 
economic  system  is  like  those  walks  which  are  thrown 
along  the  thin  crust  of  earth  among  the  geysers  of 
Yellowstone  Park,  where  those  who  walk  them  are 
in  danger  that  a misstep  may  plunge  them  through 
the  thin  crust  to  perish  in  the  scalding  heat  beneath. 
While  an  economic  system  based  upon  the  legalized 
robbery  of  one  class  by  another  remains  in  force,  the 
abyss  of  involuntary  poverty  will  always  yawn  for 
those  who  may  lose  their  command  of  wealth 
through  their  own  incapacity  for  management,  or 
through  circumstances  beyond  their  control.  It 
seems  likely  that  an  instinctive  sense  of  this  is  at 
least  partly  responsible  for  the  constant  effort  of  peo- 


242  Concerning  Women 

pie  already  well  off  to  increase  their  fortunes.  It  is 
certainly  responsible  for  a great  deal  of  effort  to  get 
wealth  by  dishonest  means — that  is  to  say,  by  those 
forms  of  dishonesty  which  are  without  legal  sanc- 
tion. The  fear  of  want  produces  avarice,  chicanery, 
fraud,  servility,  envy,  suspicion,  distrust.  It  leads 
to  unlegalized  theft,  to  murder,  to  prostitution.  It 
produces  a class  of  people  who,  in  a society  which 
denies  free  opportunity  and  puts  a premium  on 
graft,  live  by  their  wits,  and  in  so  doing  often  dis- 
play an  energy  and  ability  which  would  be  useful 
to  a society  that  offered  it  no  opportunity  save  that 
for  honest  and  useful  employment.  Moreover,  this 
fear  of  want  keeps  the  great  majority  of  people  con- 
stantly occupied  with  the  means  of  existence,  when 
they  should  properly  be  devoting  a large  share  of 
their  time  to  the  fulfilment  of  its  purpose,  which  is 
that  enjoyment  gained  from  developing  one’s  spirit- 
ual capacities  and  pursuing  spiritual  interests. 
Those  thus  preoccupied  can  not  employ  with  either 
imagination  or  profit  what  leisure  they  have. 
Rather,  they  will  merely  use  their  leisure  to  overcome 
their  weariness  of  themselves.  Their  pleasures  will 
be  mere  pastimes,  of  the  kind  that  subvert  thought 
and  dull  imagination.  Thus  little  scope  is  left  for 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  243 

the  higher  activities  of  the  spirit,  and  the  quality  of 
life  is  impoverished. 

The  spiritual  effects  of  the  fear  of  want  are  natu- 
rally most  clearly  observable  in  countries  where  it  is 
most  widespread  and  deep-rooted.  England  offers 
a particularly  good  field  for  observation  of  these  phe- 
nomena, for  economic  exploitation  by  a conquering 
class  which  has  merged  into  a powerful  owning  aris- 
tocracy, is  there  advanced  to  the  point  of  breakdown; 
therefore  all  the  results  of  economic  exploitation  are 
present  in  overflowing  measure.  The  most  striking, 
perhaps,  are  the  servility  and  snobbery  which  find 
sanction  even  in  the  Church  catechism,  in  the  pas- 
sage admonishing  candidates  for  confirmation  to 
order  themselves  lowly  and  reverently  unto  all  their 
betters — that  is  to  say,  those  born  to  a higher  place 
in  the  social  order.  The  English  novelists,  from  the 
days  of  Richardson  and  Fielding  down  to  the  pres- 
ent, have  faithfully  recorded  the  unlovely  char- 
acteristics bred  in  a people  by  the  ever-present  neces- 
sity of  keeping  an  eye  to  the  main  chance;  by  the 
knowledge  that  fortune  may  depend  less  on  merit 
and  ability  than  on  a servile  currying  of  favour 
with  those  powerful  persons  who,  through  the  for- 
tuitous circumstance  of  birth,  are  in  control  of  eco- 


244  Concerning  Women 

nomic  opportunity.  Richardson  was  himself  de- 
moralized by  the  social  system  to  which  the  economic 
system  had  given  rise.  His  acceptance  of  arrogance 
in  the  owning  class  and  abjectness  in  the  exploited, 
shows  how  acquiesence  in  injustice  can  corrupt  even 
a man  of  genius.  “Pamela”  is  a veritable  study  in 
servility;  an  unconscious  and  devastating  exposition 
of  the  basic  principle  of  English  society.  Fielding, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  too  critical  to  be  corrupted 
by  it,  and  his  books  are  all  the  more  valuable  for 
the  objectivity  with  which  he  presents  the  demorali- 
zation that  a predatory  economic  system  has  pro- 
duced. What  an  array  of  characters  he  parades  be- 
fore his  readers — avaricious,  envious,  suspicious, 
self-seeking,  arrogant,  venal ! Even  the  hero  of  his 
great  novel,  “Tom  Jones,”  is  not  above  prostituting 
himself  to  an  elderly  lady  of  wealth  when  he  finds 
himself  in  danger  of  want  and  with  no  more  honest 
means  of  getting  a living,  having  been  brought  up 
as  a gentleman,  that  is  to  say,  an  idler.  This  great- 
est of  English  novelists  was  well  aware  of  the  effect 
produced  on  the  collective  life  of  his  nation  by  an 
arbitrary  division  of  human  kind  into  “High  peo- 
ple and  Low  people,”  and  he  took  occasion  to  com- 
ment upon  it  with  a penetrating  satire. 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  245 

Now  the  world  being  divided  thus  into  people  of 
fashion  and  people  of  no  fashion,  a fierce  contention 
arose  between  them;  nor  would  those  of  one  party,  to 
avoid  suspicion,  be  seen  publicly  to  speak  to  those  of 
the  other,  tho’  they  often  held  a very  good  correspond- 
ence in  private  . . . but  we  who  know  them,  must 
have  daily  found  very  high  persons  know  us  in  one 
place  and  not  in  another,  today  and  not  tomorrow;  . . . 
and  perhaps  if  the  gods,  according  to  the  opinions  of 
some,  made  men  only  to  laugh  at  them,  there  is  no  part 
of  our  behavior  which  answers  the  end  of  our  creation 
better  than  this. 

One  might  say  that  the  profuseness  of  unamiable 
qualities  with  which  Fielding  endows  so  many  of 
his  characters,  was  due  to  a peculiar  humour  or  pes- 
simism in  this  writer,  if  one  did  not  find  those  same 
qualities  plentifully  distributed  among  the  char- 
acters of  his  successors.  Dickens  created  a whole 
gallery  of  highly  interesting  and  unadmirable  folk, 
and  one  finds  such  faithful  counterparts  in  Thack- 
eray, for  example,  or  in  George  Eliot,  that  they  are 
to  be  explained  not  as  the  mere  creation  of  any 
author’s  imagination,  but  as  a product  of  the  society 
in  which  he  lived  and  observed. 

There  is  material  for  an  excellent  study  of  the 


246  Concerning  Women 

relation  of  the  economic  and  social  system  to  the 
literary  art,  in  the  important  role  that  money  plays 
in  English  fiction.  That  intense  preoccupation  with 
the  means  of  existence  which  is  enforced  by  the  fear 
of  want,  has  profoundly  affected  the  plots  and  char- 
acters of  English  novels.  The  number  of  plots 
which  hinge  on  someone’s  attempt  to  get  someone 
else’s  money,  is  astonishing.  The  number  of  men 
and  women  who  either  marry  or  attempt  to  marry 
for  money,  is  legion;  and  no  English  novelist  has 
the  hardihood  to  settle  his  characters  for  life  with- 
out providing  them  with  a living,  generally  through 
inheritance  or  the  generosity  of  some  wealthy  patron. 
It  is  significant  that  if  they  are  going  to  make  their 
own  fortunes  they  usually  strike  out  to  make  them 
in  the  new  world,  where  there  is  some  opportunity. 
The  preoccupation  with  getting  money,  not  through 
industry  but  through  inheritance,  cadging,  or  chi- 
canery, is  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms  in  the  stories 
of  W.  W.  Jacobs  about  life  along  the  waterfront  of 
London.  These  entertaining  and  racy  stories,  with 
monotonous  regularity,  present  one  theme,  and  that 
theme  is  the  attempt  of  one  character  to  do  another 
— usually  his  closest  associate — out  of  some  trifling 
sum  of  money.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  one 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  247 

of  the  striking  differences  between  English  and 
American  fiction  is  that  where  the  former  deals  with 
money-getting  the  latter  is  likelier  to  deal  with 
money-making.  The  one  represents  a society  where 
opportunity  is  pretty  thoroughly  monopolized;  the 
other  a society  in  which  it  is  as  yet  somewhat 
less  so. 

It  is  not  the  fear  of  want  alone  which  demoralizes 
and  corrupts.  In  a society  where  the  greatest  re- 
spect is  paid  to  those  who  live  in  idleness  through 
legalized  theft;  where  men  of  genius  may  be  treated 
like  lackeys  by  those  whose  only  claim  to  superior- 
ity is  their  command  of  wealth ; where  industry  and 
ability  yield  smaller  returns  than  flattery  and  servil- 
ity; in  such  a society  there  is  little  to  encourage  hon- 
esty and  independence  of  spirit.  So  long  as  honour 
is  paid  to  those  who  live  by  other  people’s  labour, 
in  proportion  to  their  power  of  commanding  it,  so 
long  will  praise  of  honesty,  industry,  and  thrift 
savour  of  hypocrisy,  and  so  long  will  the  mass  of 
people  be  under  small  temptation  to  cultivate  these 
virtues;  and  so  long,  also,  will  the  moralists  who 
seek  to  inculcate  them  be  open  to  the  same  sus- 
picion of  insincerity  as  are  those  bankers  who  stand 
to  profit  substantially  by  the  thrift  they  preach 


248  Concerning  Women 

among  depositors.  There  is  something  grimly 
amusing  in  the  complaints  so  frequently  heard  from 
those  who  live  in  ease,  about  the  shiftlessness  of  the 
working  classes  and  their  dishonest  workmanship; 
complaints  which  are  well  founded,  perhaps,  but  do 
not  take  into  account  the  slight  incentive  that  is  fur- 
nished by  the  knowledge  that  the  profits  of  indus- 
try and  honest  workmanship  will  be  diverted  into 
other  pockets  than  those  of  the  workers.  If  labour 
takes  every  opportunity  of  giving  as  little  as  it  can 
for  as  much  as  it  can  get,  one  must  remember  that  it 
but  follows  the  example  set  by  the  owning  classes, 
an  example  that  has  yielded  them  rich  returns  both 
in  wealth  and  in  the  esteem  of  their  fellow-men. 
Under  a free  economic  system  no  such  demoraliz- 
ing example  would  exist.  The  material  rewards  of 
honesty,  industry,  and  thrift  would  accrue  to  those 
who  practised  these  virtues;  and  since  there  would 
be  no  opportunity  to  gain  esteem  through  the  ap- 
propriation of  other  people’s  labour,  those  who 
wished  to  enjoy  it  would  be  forced  to  depend  on  more 
worthy  means,  such  as  ability,  integrity,  and  up- 
rightness in  their  dealings  with  other  people. 

In  a free  society,  ignorance,  vice  and  crime  would 
tend  to  disappear.  We  should  have  no  people  in 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  249 

high  places  whose  large-scale  theft  would  make  them 
fitter  inmates  for  jails,  and  no  people  in  jails  for 
those  petty  thefts  to  which  need  is  a perennial  in- 
centive. Jails,  indeed,  would  be  very  little  needed 
by  such  a society;  for  what  with  the  abolition  of  the 
State,  with  its  long  list  of  law-made  crimes,  and  the 
disappearance  of  those  social  conditions  which  are 
largely  responsible  for  the  few  infractions  of  moral 
law  which  constitute  real  crime,  there  would  be  very 
few  offenders  to  occupy  them.  I have  already  re- 
marked that  need  is  a constant  incentive  to  theft; 
it  is  also  the  chief  cause  of  ignorance;  and  ignorance 
and  misery  are  fecund  sources  of  vice,  as  well  as  of 
the  physical  and  mental  degeneracy  which  result  in 
imbecility  and  idiocy.  If  need  were  removed,  if 
every  human  being  were  assured  from  birth  of  phys- 
ical well-being  and  ample  opportunity  to  develop 
mentally  to  the  full  extent  of  his  capacity,  these 
distressing  results  of  involuntary  poverty  would  not 
long  exist  to  menace  the  peace  and  health  of  com- 
munities and  fill  reformers  and  eugenists  with 
alarm.  The  cities  where  human  beings  are  crowded 
together  under  conditions  subversive  of  health  and 
decency  would  be  gradually  emptied  of  their  sur- 
plus population.  At  present  they  are  largely  asy- 


250  Concerning  Women 

lums  for  the  expropriated,  but  when  land  was  once 
more  freely  available  they  would  resume  their  nat- 
ural character  as  centres  of  industry  and  exchange. 
There  would  be  no  more  centres  of  want,  misery  and 
vice,  like  centres  of  infection,  to  menace  the  health 
and  well-being  of  society.  Man,  reclaimed  by  the 
land  which  is  his  natural  home,  would  appear  for 
what  he  really  is,  a child  of  the  earth,  rather  than 
an  industrial  machine  far  removed  from  his  right- 
ful heritage  of  close,  health-giving  connexion  with 
the  soil  from  which  his  sustenance  comes.  Life,  in 
short,  having  been  placed  on  its  natural  basis,  might 
be  expected  to  proceed  along  natural  lines  of  de- 
velopment. Mankind,  assured  of  physical  health, 
would  progress  steadily  in  health  of  mind  and  activ- 
ity of  spirit;  and  being  freed  from  its  pressing  need 
to  take  thought  of  the  morrow,  it  would  have  leisure 
to  seek  the  kingdom  of  heaven — not  that  heaven 
which  the  church  promises  as  a future  reward  for 
orthodox  communicants,  but  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  which  “is  within  you,”  the  happiness  that 
comes  from  the  harmonious  development  of  the  high- 
est faculties  of  body,  mind  and  spirit,  and  their  use 
in  the  promotion  of  a beautiful  individual  and  col- 
lective life.  Superstition  and  intolerance  would 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  251 

disappear  with  the  ignorance  that  produces  them. 
Thought  would  no  longer  be  hampered  either  by  fear 
or  the  consciousness  of  dependence  on  an  order  of 
things  unfit  to  bear  the  light  of  reason;  but  every 
human  being  would  be  free  to  exercise  that  inde- 
pendence of  mind  that  only  the  most  courageous  or 
the  most  securely  placed  may  allow  themselves  at 
present.  The  long  story  of  martyrdom  for  opinion 
would  come  to  an  end  when  freedom  of  opinion  no 
longer  threatened  a vested  interest  in  the  perpetua- 
tion  of  injustice.  Thus  that  “progressive  humani- 
zation of  man  in  society”  which  is  civilization  in  the 
highest  sense,  would  be  in  a way  to  be  promoted  as 
it  has  never  been  promoted  in  any  society  of  which 
the  world  has  knowledge. 

hi 

Theoretically,  it  might  still  be  possible  for  free 
economic  opportunity  and  its  benefits  to  exist  for 
men  only  or  for  women  only;  but  in  order  to  exclude 
a whole  sex  from  participation  in  them,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  reduce  its  members  to  the  status  of  chat- 
tels. Now,  to  reduce  half  of  humanity  to  slavery  is 
practically  unthinkable;  it  would  necessitate  a re- 


252  Concerning  Women 

version  to  an  order  of  thought  that  has  largely  been 
outgrown;  for  all  social  injustice,  in  the  last  analy- 
sis, is  founded  in  an  ignorance  and  prejudice  which 
cause  even  its  victims  to  acquiesce  in  it.  Indeed, 
without  this  acquiescence,  social  injustice  may  be 
called  impossible.  “ After  the  primary  necessities 
of  food  and  raiment,  freedom  is  the  first  and  strong- 
est want  of  human  nature.”  Because  of  this  in- 
stinct for  freedom,  the  subjection  of  any  class  in  so- 
ciety can  be  continued  only  so  long  as  that  class  itself 
fails  clearly  to  realize  the  injustice  of  its  position; 
when  it  comes  into  a clear  realization  of  this  injus- 
tice it  will  demand  and  eventually  obtain  the  re- 
moval of  its  disabilities.  The  subjection  of  women, 
such  as  it  has  been,  lasted  only  so  long  as  women 
themselves  acquiesced  in  it.1  When  they  developed 
a sense  of  injury,  they  began  to  demand  the  equality 
with  men  which  is  their  right,  and  ignorance,  prej- 
udice and  superstition  are  yielding  before  the  de- 

1 This  is  not  to  be  taken  as  a contradiction  of  what  I have  said 
in  Chapter  I concerning  the  argument  that  women  wanted  to  be 
subjected.  No  class  ever  voluntarily  accepts  subjection;  but  when 
it  has  been  subjected  by  one  means  or  another,  the  ignorance  that 
its  subjection  breeds  may  cause  it  to  become  passively  acquiescent 
in  the  injustice  of  its  position.  It  is  worth  noting  that  so  long  as 
the  idea  of  slavery  is  tolerated,  slaves  may  accept  their  position  with 
a certain  fatalism,  much  as  the  vanquished  force  in  war  accepts  its 
defeat. 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  253 

mand.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  women, 
having  progressed  thus  far,  would  tolerate  without 
a sharp  struggle  any  reversion  to  the  injustice  from 
which  they  have  escaped.  Ignorance,  prejudice, 
and  superstition,  moreover,  are  incompatible  with 
the  enlightenment  which  will  be  necessary  in  order 
to  secure  economic  justice  even  for  one-half  of  hu- 
manity; for  that  enlightenment  postulates  not  only 
the  desire  to  enjoy  freedom  oneself,  but  the  desire 
that  all  people  may  enjoy  it — that  is,  it  postulates 
repudiation  of  the  idea  of  dominance.  Thus  society 
not  only  could  not  endure  half  slave,  half  free;  it 
would  not  wish  so  to  endure. 

Women  are  at  present  under  certain  disabilities 
which  legal  equality  with  men  can  hardly  be  ex- 
pected to  remove.  Those  disabilities  are: 

1.  Economic:  Women  are  the  victims  of  unjust 
discriminations  in  industry  and  the  professions  in 
regard  to  training,  opportunities,  tenure  of  employ- 
ment, and  wages.  They  are  also  victimized  by  ill- 
considered  “welfare”  legislation  sponsored  by  be- 
nevolent persons,  and  by  male  workers  whose  pur- 
pose is  to  rid  themselves  of  unwelcome  competition.1 

1 It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  all  male  workers,  individually  or 
in  union,  take  this  attitude ; but  that  it  does  exist  among  them  I 
have  already  shown. 


254  Concerning  Women 

If  legal  equality  of  the  sexes  were  established, 
women  might  be  able,  under  the  law,  to  force  public 
industrial  schools  to  give  them  equal  opportunities 
for  training;  they  might  also  be  able  to  enforce  a 
demand  for  equal  pay  with  men  for  equal  work. 
It  is  even  conceivable  that  they  might  force  employ- 
ers to  lay  off  workers,  during  periods  of  depression, 
on  a proportional  basis — men  and  women  together, 
in  proportion  to  the  number  of  each  sex  employed. 
All  this,  however,  would  entail  unremitting  vigi- 
lance, and  great  effort  in  getting  legal  enactments; 
it  would  also  entail  a great  deal  of  governmental 
machinery,  with  all  the  waste  and  ineffectiveness  im- 
plied by  the  term;  and  it  would  leave  the  general 
labour-problem  precisely  where  it  is  at  present.  As 
for  the  matter  of  opportunity,  so  long  as  industry  is 
in  the  hands  of  private  concerns,  I see  no  way  by 
which  employers  can  be  forced  under  an  equal-rights 
law  to  employ  women  where  they  prefer  to  employ 
men.  Nor  is  there  any  certainty  that  legal  equal- 
ity will  save  working  women  from  having  the  race 
“safeguarded”  at  their  expense.  But  if  land  were 
put  freely  in  competition  with  industry  for  the  em- 
ployment of  labour,  all  these  disabilities  would  dis- 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  255 

appear.  Women  would  enjoy  the  same  freedom  as 
men  to  get  their  living  by  their  labour,  and  since 
there  would  be  no  such  thing  as  a labour-surplus, 
their  wage,  like  that  of  men,  would  be  the  full  prod- 
uct of  their  labour,  and  not  that  share  which  em- 
ployers or  governmental  boards  thought  fit  to  grant 
them.  There  would  be  no  need  for  reformers  or 
other  benevolent  persons  to  secure  them  fair  hours 
and  conditions  of  labour,  or  to  get  them  excluded 
from  hazardous  employments;  for  there  is  no  way 
to  make  a worker  accept  onerous  conditions  of  labour 
from  an  employer  if  he  have  an  ever-present  alter- 
native of  going  out  and  creating  more  agreeable  con- 
ditions by  working  for  himself.  The  worker  whose 
independent  position  makes  it  possible  to  refuse  to 
work  an  excessive  number  of  hours  or  under  un- 
healthful or  dangerous  or  disagreeable  conditions, 
will  simply  refuse,  and  there  will  be  an  end  of  it. 
Thus  employers,  instead  of  being  prevented  from  ex- 
ploiting women  beyond  a certain  point,  would  be 
rendered  incapable  of  exploiting  anyone  in  any  de- 
gree. Nor  would  male  workers  longer  have  any  in- 
centive to  avail  themselves  of  “protective”  legisla- 
tion in  order  to  reduce  the  competition  of  women 


256  Concerning  Women 

with  men  in  the  labour-market;  for  it  is  only  where 
opportunity  is  artificially  restricted  that  there  are 
“not  enough  jobs  to  go  around.” 

Certain  direct  consequences  of  the  economic  in- 
feriority of  women  might  be  expected  to  disappear 
when  that  inferiority  no  longer  existed.  Foremost 
among  these  is  the  demoralizing  temptation  to  get 
their  living  by  their  sex.  Prostitution  would  dis- 
appear from  a society  which  offered  women  ample 
opportunity  to  earn  their  living  without  doing  vio- 
lence to  their  selective  sexual  disposition.  Marriage 
would  no  longer  be  degraded  to  the  level  of  a means 
of  livelihood,  as  it  is  today  for  a great  many  women; 
for  economic  security  would  no  longer  in  any  wise 
depend  upon  it.  This  being  the  case,  the  expecta- 
tion now  put  upon  women  to  undertake  marriage 
as  a profession  would  disappear,  and  marriage 
would  come  to  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  a condition, 
freely  and  voluntarily  assumed  by  both  sexes,  who 
would  jointly  and  equally  undertake  its  responsibili- 
ties. Under  such  circumstances,  one  might  con- 
fidently expect  a further  modification  of  institu- 
tionalized marriage  which  would  remove  all  those 
privileges  and  disabilities  now  legally  enforced  on 
either  party  by  virtue  of  the  contract.  The  idea  that 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  257 

woman’s  place  is  the  home — which  implies  that  mar- 
riage, for  her,  necessarily  involves  acquiescence  in  a 
traditional  sexual  division  of  labour  and  a tradi- 
tional mode  of  life — with  all  its  disabling  economic 
and  psychological  consequences,  would  disappear 
from  a society  in  which  she  was  able  freely  to  choose 
her  occupation  according  to  her  abilities.  Thus, 
from  the  status  of  a class  regarded  as  being  divinely 
ordained  to  be  the  world’s  housekeepers,  women 
would  emerge  into  the  status  of  human  beings,  free 
to  consult  their  interests  and  inclinations  in  the 
ordering  of  their  lives,  without  regard  to  traditional 
expectations  which,  being  no  longer  enforced  by 
economic  or  legal  sanctions,  would  have  no  longer 
any  power  over  them. 

2.  Psychological:  Those  prejudices  and  super- 
stitions which  now  hamper  women  in  their  develop- 
ment and  in  the  ordering  of  their  lives,  might  be  ex- 
pected to  disappear  from  a free  society.  In  so  far 
at  they  are  the  consequences  of  woman’s  subjection, 
they  would  yield  before  her  emergence  into  the  status 
of  a human  being,  sharing  equally  with  man  in  the 
freedom  of  opportunity  that  would  result  from  the 
establishment  of  economic  justice,  and  the  increased 
cultural  advantages  that  freedom  of  opportunity 


258  Concerning  Women 

would  bring.  In  so  far  as  they  are  the  outgrowth  of 
primitive  ignorance  and  superstition,  they  would 
yield  before  the  increased  intelligence  and  enlighten- 
ment which  might  be  expected  to  result  from  the 
abundance  and  leisure  afforded  to  every  human  be- 
ing by  economic  freedom.  Thus  those  artificial  dif- 
ferentiations between  the  sexes  which  have  been  built 
up  by  fear,  by  superstitions,  and  by  masculine 
dominance,  would  tend  to  disappear.  Women 
wTould  no  longer  be  regarded  as  extra-human  beings 
endowed  with  superhuman  powers  for  good  or  ill; 
they  would  no  longer  be  regarded  exclusively  or 
chiefly  as  a function,  being  no  longer  forced  to  oc- 
cupy that  status ; theories  of  their  mental  and  spirit- 
ual inferiority  based  on  the  results  of  centuries  of 
subjection  would  yield  before  a more  humane  and 
scientific  attitude;  and  as  freedom  promoted  individ- 
uation among  women,  it  would  become  evident  that 
the  traditional  notions  concerning  the  feminine  na- 
ture were  drawn  from  qualities  which,  having  been 
bred  by  their  subjection,  should  have  been  regarded 
as  characteristics  not  of  a sex  but  of  a class. 

3.  Social:  The  superstitious  notion  that  wo- 
man’s honour  is  a matter  of  sex  would  disappear 
with  the  masculine  dominance  from  which  it  re- 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  259 

suited.  When  women  need  no  longer  depend  on 
marriage  for  their  living  or  their  social  position,  they 
will  no  longer  be  under  any  great  compulsion  to 
make  their  sexual  relations  conform  to  standards 
which  have  been  adapted  to  suit  the  interests,  de- 
sires and  tastes  of  men.  Being  economically  inde- 
pendent of  men,  they  will  be  at  liberty  to  consult  their 
own  interests,  desires  and  tastes,  in  this  as  in  other 
matters.  They  may  desire  to  preserve  those  habits  of 
virginity  before  marriage  and  chastity  after  it,  which 
have  been  imposed  upon  them  under  masculine  domi- 
nance; but  they  will  be  under  no  external  compulsion 
to  do  so.  When  they  have  no  longer  a professional 
interest  in  conforming  to  the  conventional  moral 
code,  their  sexual  relations  will  cease  to  be  regarded 
as  falling  within  the  purview  of  morality  at  all; 
rather  they  will  be,  as  those  of  men  have  been,  a 
question  of  manners.  For  when  a moral  precept 
no  longer  has  social  or  economic  sanctions  to  en- 
force it,  its  observance  ceases  to  be  a matter  of 
worldly  interest  or  expediency,  and  becomes  a matter 
of  personal  taste.  Then,  if  it  be  not  sound,  it  will 
be  repudiated;  if  it  be  sound,  the  individual  who 
allows  himself  to  be  guided  by  it  will  profit  spirit- 
ually by  doing  so,  because  his  obedience  will  respond 


260  Concerning  Women 

to  his  own  instinct  for  what  is  good,  rather  than  to 
an  external  pressure. 

The  spiritual  gain  that  will  come  through  the  re- 
lease from  bondage  to  superstition,  discrimination 
and  taboo,  is  incalculable.  Freed  from  her  slavery 
to  catchwords,  woman  will  be  able  to  discover  and 
appraise  for  herself  the  true  spiritual  values  which 
catchwords  usually  obscure.  Having  no  longer  any 
need  to  preserve  a fearful  regard  for  what  other  peo- 
ple may  think  of  her,  she  will  be  at  liberty  to  regu- 
late her  conduct  by  what  she  wishes  to  think  of  her- 
self; and  hence  she  will  be  able  to  cast  aside  the 
hypocrisy,  duplicity  and  dissimulation  that  must  be 
bred  in  any  class  of  people  whose  position  in  society 
depends  not  upon  what  they  are  but  upon  what  they 
appear  to  be.  Having  attained  to  the  full  human- 
ity which  this  emancipation  implies,  she  will  gain 
sufficient  respect  for  her  sex  to  tolerate  no  discrimi- 
nations against  it.  Thus  we  may  expect  to  see  her 
sexual  function  of  motherhood  placed  on  a basis 
of  self-respect,  and  the  barbarous  injustice  of  illegit- 
imacy relegated  to  the  limbo  of  forgotten  abuses. 
Woman  will  for  the  first  time  undergo  the  profound 
and  weighty  experience  of  responsibility  to  herself, 
rather  than  to  social  institutions  and  arrangements 


What  Is  To  Be  Done 


261 


which  were  made  for  her,  and  whose  nature  is  not 
such  as  to  command  the  deference  of  a free  agent. 
Free  from  the  tyranny  of  the  expected,  from  the  dis- 
abling consequences  of  surveillance  and  repression, 
women  will  for  the  first  time  be  able  to  develop  to 
their  full  stature  as  human  beings,  in  accordance 
with  the  law  of  spiritual  growth  which  has  so  long 
been  thwarted  and  perverted  by  the  usages  of  society. 

I have  given  only  a general  idea  of  what  economic 
freedom  would  do  to  promote  human  happiness. 
Its  effect  upon  the  lives  and  characters  of  men  would 
be  quite  as  emancipating  as  upon  those  of  women; 
but  this  I have  not  space  to  consider  in  detail.  In 
passing,  however,  I might  remark  that  not  the  least 
of  the  benefits  that  men  would  gain  by  it  would  be 
relief  from  the  worry  and  humiliation  which  the  sup- 
port of  women  so  often  involves  at  present.  “I  have 
taken  mistreatment  from  that  conductor,”  said  a 
young  musician  recently,  “that  I never  would  have 
stood  for  if  I were  single.  But  I have  a wife,  and 
that  makes  us  all  cowards.”  A free  people  would 
outgrow  on  the  one  hand  the  sheepishness  that 
fear  of  want  begets,  and  on  the  other  the  arrogance 
bred  by  consciousness  of  power.  Men  would  no 
longer  need  endure  humiliation  for  the  sake  of  keep- 


262  Concerning  Women 

ing  their  jobs;  and  those  over  them  would  be  es- 
topped from  arrogance  by  the  knowledge  that  they 
were  dealing  with  free  men  who  were  under  no  com- 
pulsion to  tolerate  it. 

If  it  appear  that  I envisage  utopian  results  from 
the  institution  of  economic  freedom,  let  me  assume 
the  possibility  that  those  spiritual  results  which  I 
foresee  might  not  come  about.  If  they  did  not  come 
about,  however,  their  failure  to  do  so  would  imply 
a profound  and  inexplicable  change  for  the  worse 
in  human  nature;  for  if  the  world’s  history  proves 
anything,  it  is  that  there  is  in  mankind  a natural 
disposition  to  aspire  toward  what  is  ennobling  and 
beautiful,  and  that  this  disposition  is  favoured  by 
economic  security — especially  where  it  is  not  as- 
sociated with  irresponsible  power — and  thwarted  by 
involuntary  poverty.  Why  is  it  that  the  middle 
classes  are  regarded  as  the  “backbone”  of  society,  if 
hot  because  they  have  had  enough  command  of 
wealth  to  enable  the  maintenance  of  health  and  a 
high  standard  of  education,  without  that  excess  and 
power  which  too  often  breed  idleness  and  arrogance  ? 
Leisure  and  abundance  stimulate  independence  of 
spirit,  thought,  education,  creative  activity.  Penury 
leads  to  demoralization,  ignorance,  dulness.  This 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  263 

has  been  the  world’s  experience  in  the  past.  “There 
is  in  man,”  says  Goethe,  “a  creative  disposition 
which  comes  into  activity  as  soon  as  his  existence  is 
assured.  As  soon  as  he  has  nothing  to  worry  about 
or  to  fear,  this  semi-divinity  in  him,  working  effec- 
tively in  his  spiritual  peace  and  assurance,  grasps 
materials  into  which  to  breathe  its  own  spirit.” 
Why  should  one  assume  that  this  spirit  will  pass 
over  the  material  offered  by  life  itself  and  the  re- 
lations of  human  beings  with  one  another?  It  has 
not  done  so  in  the  past.  Throughout  mankind’s 
.long  martyrdom  of  exploitation,  through  all  the 
struggling  and  hatred  engendered  thereby,  this  semi- 
divinity in  man  has  been  leading  him  towards  a 
more;  humane  conception  olf  life.  The  spiritual 
peace  and  assurance  resulting  from  economic  justice 
would  set  all  human  beings  free  not  only  to  share 
in  this  conception  but  to  realize  it — to  establish  upon 
earth  that  ideal  life  of  man  which,  in  the  words  of 
George  Sand,  “is  nothing  but  his  normal  life  as  he 
shall  one  day  come  to  know  it.” 

IV 

The  whole  point  of  the  foregoing,  for  present  pur- 
poses, is  this:  It  is  impossible  for  a sex  or  a class 


264  Concerning  Women 

to  have  economic  freedom  until  everybody  has  it, 
and  until  economic  freedom  is  attained  for  every- 
body, there  can  be  no  real  freedom  for  anybody. 
Without  economic  freedom,  efforts  after  political  and 
social  freedom  are  nugatory  and  illusive,  except  for 
what  educational  value  they  may  have  for  those  con- 
cerned with  them.  The  women  of  the  United  States, 
having  now  got  about  all  that  is  to  be  had  out  of 
these  efforts — enough  at  any  rate,  to  raise  an  un- 
easy suspicion  that  their  ends  are  lamentably  far 
from  final — are  in  a peculiarly  good  position  to  dis- 
cern the  nature  of  real  freedom,  to  see  which  way  it 
lies,  and  to  feel  an  ardent  interest  in  what  it  can  do 
for  them.  My  purpose,  then,  is  not  deliberately  to 
discourage  their  prosecution  of  any  enfranchising 
measures  that  may  lie  in  their  way  to  promote,  and 
still  less  to  disparage  the  successes  that  they  have 
already  attained.  It  is  rather  to  invite  them 
thoughtfully  to  take  stock  of  what  they  have  really 
got  by  these  successes,  to  consider  whether  it  is  all 
they  want,  and  to  settle  with  themselves  whether  their 
collective  experience  on  the  way  up  from  the  status 
of  a subject  sex  does  not  point  them  to  a higher  ideal 
of  freedom  than  any  they  have  hitherto  entertained. 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  265 

In  the  past  century,  women  have  gained  a great 
deal  in  the  way  of  educational,  social  and  political 
rights.  They  have  gained  a fair  degree  of  economic 
independence.  They  are  no  longer  obliged  to  “keep 
silence  in  the  churches,”  as  they  still  were  at  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century;  indeed,  certain 
sects  have  even  admitted  them  to  the  ministry.  The 
women  who  now  enjoy  this  comparative  freedom, 
and  accept  it  more  or  less  as  a matter  of  course,  are 
indebted  to  a long  line  of  women  who  carried  on 
the  struggle — sometimes  lonely  and  discouraging — 
against  political,  legal,  social  and  industrial  discrim- 
ination, and  to  the  men,  as  well,  who  aided  and 
encouraged  them.  Thanks  to  the  efforts  of  these 
pioneers,  the  women  of  today  have  a new  tradition 
to  maintain,  a nobler  tradition  than  any  of  those 
which  women  were  expected  to  observe  in  the  past: 
the  tradition  of  active  demand  for  the  establishment 
of  freedom.  They  will  be  none  the  less  under  ob- 
ligation to  continue  this  demand  when  the  freedom 
that  shall  remain  to  be  secured  is  of  a kind  not  en- 
visaged by  their  predecessors.  Rather,  in  the  meas- 
ure that  they  proceed  beyond  those  ends  that  seemed 
ultimate  to  their  predecessors,  they  will  prove  that 


266  Concerning  Women 

these  built  well;  for  the  best  earnest  of  advance- 
ment is  the  attainment  of  an  ever  new  and  wider 
vision  of  progress. 

The  organized  feminist  movement  in  England 
and  America  has  concerned  itself  pretty  exclusively 
with  securing  political  rights  for  women;  that  is  to 
say,  its  conception  of  freedom  has  been  based  on  the 
eighteenth  century  misconception  of  it  as  a matter  of 
suffrage.  Women  have  won  the  vote,  and  now  they 
are  proceeding  to  use  their  new  political  power  to 
secure  the  removal  of  tiiose  legal  discriminations 
which  still  remain  in  force  against  their  sex.  This 
is  well  enough;  it  is  important  that  the  State  should 
be  forced  to  renounce  its  pretension  to  discriminate 
against  women  in  favour  of  men.  But  even  if  we 
assume  that  the  establishment  of  legal  equality  be- 
tween the  sexes  would  result  in  complete  social  and 
economic  equality,  we  are  obliged  to  face  the  fact 
that  under  such  a regime  women  would  enjoy  pre- 
cisely that  degree  of  freedom  which  men  now  enjoy — 
that  is  to  say,  very  little.  I have  remarked  that  those 
who  control  men’s  and  women’s  economic  opportu- 
nity control  men  and  women.  The  State  represents 
the  organized  interest  of  those  who  control  economic 
opportunity;  and  while  the  State  continues  to  exist, 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  267 

it  may  be  forced  to  renounce  all  legal  discrimina- 
tions against  one  sex  in  favour  of  the  other  without 
in  any  wise  affecting  its  fundamental  discrimina- 
tion against  the  propertyless,  dependent  class — 
which  is  made  up  of  both  men  and  women — in  fa- 
vour of  the  owning  and  exploiting  classes.  Until 
this  fundamental  discrimination  is  challenged,  the 
State  may,  without  danger  to  itself,  grant,  in  prin- 
ciple at  least,  the  claims  to  political  and  legal  equal- 
ity of  all  classes  under  its  power.  The  emancipa- 
tion of  negroes  within  the  political  State  has  not 
notably  improved  their  condition;  for  they  are  still 
subject  to  an  economic  exploitation  which  is  en- 
hanced by  race-prejudice  and  the  humiliating  tradi- 
tion of  slavery.  The  emancipation  of  women 
within  the  political  State  will  leave  them  subject, 
like  the  negro,  to  an  exploitation  enhanced  by  sur- 
viving prejudices  against  them.  The  most  that  can 
be  expected  of  the  removal  of  discriminations  sub- 
jecting one  class  to  another  within  the  exploiting 
State,  is  that  it  will  free  the  subject  class  from  dual 
control — control  by  the  favoured  class  and  by  the 
monopolist  of  economic  opportunity. 

Even  this  degree  of  emancipation  is  worth  a good 
deal;  and  therefore  one  is  bound  to  regret  that  it 


268  Concerning  Women 

has  no  guarantee  of  permanence  more  secure  than 
legal  enactment.  Rights  that  depend  on  the  suffer- 
ance of  the  State  are  of  uncertain  tenure;  for  they 
are  in  constant  danger  of  abrogation  either  through 
the  failure  of  the  State  to  maintain  them,  through  a 
gradual  modification  of  the  laws  on  which  they  de- 
pend, or  through  a change  in  the  form  of  the  State.1 
At  the  present  moment  the  third  of  these  dangers, 
which  might  have  seemed  remote  ten  years  ago,  may 
be  held  to  be  at  least  equally  pressing  with  the  other 
two.  It  is  a misfortune  of  the  woman’s  movement 
that  it  has  succeeded  in  securing  political  rights  for 
women  at  the  very  period  when  political  rights  are 
worth  less  than  they  have  been  at  any  time  since  the 
eighteenth  century.  Parliamentary  government  is 
breaking  down  in  Europe,  and  the  guarantees  of  in- 
dividual rights  which  it  supported  are  disappearing 
with  it.  Republicanism  in  this  country  has  not  yet 
broken  down,  but  public  confidence  in  it  has  never 
been  so  low,  and  it  seems  certainly  on  the  way  to  dis- 

1 This  is  not  to  be  taken  as  contradicting  the  earlier  statement  that 
women  would  not  renounce  without  a struggle  the  rights  they 
have  gained.  The  world  can  not  move  toward  freedom  without 
carrying  women  along;  they  would  not  tolerate  a dual  movement, 
towards  freedom  for  men  and  slavery  for  themselves.  But  when 
the  general  movement  is  away  from  freedom,  as  the  movement  of 
political  government  is  at  present,  the  rights  of  women  are  en- 
dangered along  with  those  of  men. 


What  Is  To  Be  Done  269 

aster.  No  system  of  government  can  hope  long  to 
survive  the  cynical  disregard  of  both  law  and  prin- 
ciple which  government  in  America  regularly  ex- 
hibits. Under  these  circumstances,  no  legal  guar- 
antee of  rights  is  worth  the  paper  it  is  written  on, 
and  the  women  who  rely  upon  such  guarantees  to 
protect  them  against  prejudice  and  discrimination 
are  leaning  on  a broken  reed.  They  will  do  well  to 
bear  this  in  mind  as  they  proceed  with  their  demands 
for  equality,  and  to  remember  that  however  great 
may  be  their  immediate  returns  from  the  removal  of 
their  legal  disabilities,  they  can  hardly  hope  for 
security  against  prejudice  and  discrimination  until 
their  natural  rights,  not  as  women  but  as  human 
beings,  are  finally  established.  This  is  to  say  that 
if  they  wish  to  be  really  free  they  must  school  them- 
selves in  “the  magnificent  tradition  of  economic  free- 
dom, the  instinct  to  know  that  without  economic  free- 
dom no  other  freedom  is  significant  or  lasting,  and 
that  if  economic  freedom  be  attained,  no  other  free- 
dom can  be  withheld.” 


CHAPTER  VII 


SIGNS  OF  PROMISE 

Superficially  it  may  seem  that  the  present  is 
an  inappropriate  time  to  suggest  that  either  women 
or  men  go  deliberately  out  of  their  way  to  undertake 
a process  of  self-education  in  the  meaning  of  free- 
dom. The  dominant  spirit  among  us  is  not  only 
not  hospitable  to  the  idea  of  freedom;  it  is  openly 
inimical  to  the  idea.  The  United  States  is  the  rich- 
est and  most  powerful  country  in  the  world.  It  is  in 
the  midst  of  the  most  interesting  experiment  ever 
seen  in  the  simplification  of  human  life.  It  is  un- 
dertaking to  prove  that  human  beings  can  live  a 
generally  satisfactory  life  without  the  exercise  of  the 
reflective  intellect,  without  ideas,  without  ideals,  and 
in  a proper  use  of  the  word  without  emotions,  so 
long  as  they  may  see  the  prospect  of  a moderate  well- 
being, and  so  long  as  they  are  kept  powerfully  under 
the  spell  of  a great  number  of  mechanical  devices 
for  the  enhancement  of  comfort,  convenience  and 

pleasure.  This  experiment  is  so  universal  and  so 

270 


Signs  of  Promise  271 

preoccupying  that  while  it  is  going  on  there  would 
seem  to  be  no  chance  to  get  any  consideration  for 
so  unrelated  a matter  as  freedon.  Hence  the  only 
current  notion  of  freedom  is  freedom  to  live  and  be- 
have as  the  majority  live  and  behave  and  to  desire 
what  the  majority  desire;  and  notions  which  diverge 
from  this  have  not  been  under  stronger  suspicion  and 
disapproval  since  the  eighteenth  century  than  they 
are  in  this  country  today.  Not  that  any  one,  prob- 
ably, fears  any  degree  of  liberty  for  himself,  but 
every  one  has  a nervous  horror  of  too  much  liberty 
for  others.  Most  people  no  doubt  feel  that  they 
themselves  would  know  exactly  what  to  do  with  free- 
dom and  therefore  might  be  safely  trusted  with  any 
measure  of  it;  it  is  the  possible  social  effect  of  other 
people’s  liberty  that  they  dread.  No  idea,  probably, 
is  more  distrusted  and  feared  among  us  at  the  pres- 
ent time  than  that  of  freedom  for  someone  else. 

The  dominant  spirit  at  present — the  spirit  which 
gives  tone  to  our  society — is  diametrically  opposed 
to  the  spirit  of  freedom.  It  is  a spirit  of  coercion 
and  intolerance.  Politically  this  spirit  finds  expres- 
sion in  a pronounced  reaction  from  the  “progressiv- 
ism”  which  had  gained  so  much  support  before  the 
war;  in  an  enormous  strengthening  of  “the  cohesive 


272  Concerning  Women 

power  of  public  plunder,”  with  a consequent  rever- 
sion to  the  regimentation  of  strict  party-government ; 
in  outrages  committed  by  government,  with  popular 
approval — or  at  least  indifference — upon  the  per- 
sons and  property  of  people  suspected  of  economic 
unorthodoxy;  and  in  a cynical  disregard  by  both 
government  and  populace  of  those  guarantees  of  in- 
dividual liberty  which  were  wrested  from  govern- 
ment by  more  liberty-loving  generations  than  our 
own.  It  is  evident  also  in  the  development  of  extra- 
governmental  organizations  committed  to  a pro- 
gramme of  violence  actuated  by  religious  bigotry, 
race-hatred,  or  inflamed  chauvinism,  such  as  the 
Hackenkreutzers  and  F ascists  abroad — for  the  spirit 
of  intolerance  is  not  confined  to  the  United  States — 
and  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  in  this  country;  movements 
which,  although  they  imply  no  menace  to  the  ex- 
ploiting classes  themselves,  do  constitute  a menace, 
at  present  imperfectly  perceived,  to  the  established 
organization  through  which  those  classes  exercise 
exploitation,  and  an  extremely  threatening  danger 
to  the  lives  and  liberties  of  millions  among  the 
governed. 

Economically  the  spirit  of  coercion  is  in  evidence 
in  the  struggles  for  advantage  between  capital  and 


Signs  of  Promise  273 

labour,  each  trying  to  force  the  other  to  its  own 
terms;  in  attempts  by  employers  to  break  up  defen- 
sive organization  among  their  workers;  and  in  such 
laws  as  the  Criminal  Syndicalism  Acts,  most  of 
which  give  criminal  character  to  membership  in  an 
organization  professing  radical  economic  doctrine. 
Socially  it  is  reflected  in  such  laws  as  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment  and  the  Volstead  Act,  and  in  puerile 
and  evil-minded  attempts  at  censorship  of  individual 
conduct,  of  public  amusement,  and  of  literature  and 
art.  In  religion  it  is  manifest  in  the  activities  of  the 
Ku  Klux  Klan,  in  the  current  controversy  between 
Fundamentalism  and  Modernism  in  the  Protestant 
churches,  and  in  the  attempt  sponsored  by  bigoted 
and  influential  church-organizations  to  stop  by  edict 
the  progress  of  biological  and  anthropological  sci- 
ence, because  it  threatens  the  tenure  of  established 
superstitions.  It  is  likewise  evident  in  the  concern 
of  those  organizations  with  such  social  behaviour  of 
individuals  as  must  rationally  be  held  indifferent, 
and  their  efforts  to  get  their  particular  code  of  con- 
duct enforced  through  sumptuary  law. 

The  recrudescence  of  this  spirit  is  the  immediate 
result  of  war,  which  always  brings  it  about.  War 
embodies  in  its  crudest  form  the  doctrine  of  govern- 


274  Concerning  Women 

ment  by  violence;  and  when  war  is  dominant, 
therefore,  the  ideals  of  justice  and  liberty,  which  are 
directly  opposed  to  it,  become  so  unpopular  that 
those  who  continue  to  profess  them  are  liable  to 
persecution  by  government  and  by  their  war-mad 
compatriots.  Governments,  which  never  grant  their 
citizens  more  freedom  of  opinion  and  action  than  is 
absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  get  themselves  tol- 
erated, take  advantage  of  this  war-spirit  to  revoke,  in 
practice  if  not  in  law,  those  guarantees  of  individual 
rights  which  it  suits  their  purpose  to  dispense  with. 
When  the  popular  orgy  of  patriotic  bloodthirst  and 
intolerance  is  over,  and  the  populace  begins  to  get 
back  to  sanity,  it  finds  government  more  securely 
fixed  upon  its  back  than  ever,  and  prepared  to  ride 
it  without  that  easy  rein  and  that  sparing  of  the 
spur  which  fear  compels.  Thus  it  is  that  the  Gov- 
ernments of  the  Western  world,  since  the  war,  have 
been  carrying  on  their  imperialist  activities  abroad 
and  persecuting  dissenters  at  home,  with  an  excess 
of  cynicism  which  would  have  been  effectively  repre- 
hended by  public  opinion  before  the  war. 

The  chief  reason  why  this  policy  of  force  con- 
tinues to  command  a large  measure  of  popular  sup- 
port is  because  fear  of  bolshevism  has  taken  the 


Signs  of  Promise  275 

place  of  that  fear  of  the  enemy  which  unifies  public 
opinion  behind  Governments  in  war-time.  Eco- 
nomic interests  immediately  consolidated  against  the 
influence  of  the  Russian  Revolution  precisely  as  they 
did  against  that  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  in 
the  same  way.  Governments  have  done  all  in  their 
power  to  inculcate  fear  of  this  influence  upon  their 
peoples ; and  in  this  they  command  the  assistance  of 
practically  the  whole  institutional  organization  of 
their  respective  countries.  There  is  other  and  far 
better  reason  for  this  propaganda  than  the  mere  need 
of  a new  bogey  with  which  to  cow  the  timorous  and 
keep  the  disaffected  under  control.  The  idea  of 
freedom  which  bolshevist  Russia  has  launched  is  a 
distinct  menace  to  political  government  and  its  bene- 
ficiaries, the  owning  classes.  If  the  expropriated 
and  exploited  masses  in  other  countries  once  get  it 
through  their  heads  that  their  primary  interest  is 
not  political  but  economic,  the  days  of  political  gov- 
ernment will  be  numbered.  The  propaganda 
against  bolshevism  is  therefore  inspired  by  two  mo- 
tives: the  wish  to  frighten  peoples  into  approving 
suppression  of  those  suspected  of  political  and 
economic  heresy,  and  the  wish  to  divert  attention 
from  the  idea  behind  the  Russian  Revolution 


276  Concerning  Women 

through  the  moral  effect  of  real  or  supposititious 
misbehaviour  by  the  Revolutionary  Government. 
It  is  a curious  twist  of  human  psychology  that  makes 
supposed  outrages  committed  by  a foreign  Govern- 
ment five  thousand  miles  away  appear  to  justify  ac- 
tual and  equal  outrages  by  one’s  own  Government 
in  one’s  owq  country;  and  a proletarian  dictatorship 
five  thousand  miles  away  appear  to  justify  a dic- 
tatorship of  the  exploiting  classes  at  home.  The 
Soviet  Government’s  alleged  mistreatment  of  politi- 
cal dissenters  is  easily  made  effective  in  ranging 
popular  opinion  in  this  country  behind  governmental 
persecution  and  deportation  of  communists  and  an- 
archists. Reports  of  Red  terror  in  Russia  reconcile 
public  opinion — or  at  least  that  portion  of  it  which 
is  articulate- — to  the  reign  of  a White  terror  here. 
It  would  appear  that  the  desirability  of  dictatorship 
and  terrorism  is  not  in  question,  but  their  colour. 
Civilized  persons,  perhaps,  would  find  little  to 
chose  between  Red  terror  and  White  terror,  or  a 
Red  dictatorship  and  a White ; they  would  probably 
elect  to  dispense  with  terrorism  and  dictatorship  alto- 
gether; but  civilized  persons  have  nothing  to  do 
with  framing  the  policies  of  government,  and  al- 


Signs  of  Promise  277 

most  nothing  to  do  with  the  formation  of  majority- 
opinion. 

Superficially,  then,  an  invitation  to  contemplate 
freedom  seems  untimely.  The  cause  of  freedom  is 
neither  popular  nor  fashionable;  therefore  it  may 
seem  unduly  optimistic  to  expect  that  there  will  soon 
be  an  interest  in  it  deep  enough  or  general  enough  to 
move  many  people  to  inquire  seriously  into  its  mean- 
ing or  its  desirability.  Such  a study  would  imply  a 
critical  reappraisal  of  institutions  to  which  fear  of 
change  impels  the  majority  to  cling  with  a tenacity 
out  of  proportion  to  the  benefits  to  be  derived  from 
their  preservation.  In  this  country  this  fear  of 
change  is  especially  strong  because,  as  I have  re- 
marked before,  the  exactions  of  monopoly  have  not 
yet  advanced  to  the  point  of  choking  industry. 
Moreover,  opportunities  to  enjoy  monopoly  are  not 
as  extensively  pre-empted  here  as  they  are  elsewhere ; 
and  therefore  the  chances  of  the  individual  to  share 
in  the  loot  of  industry  are  much  better.  This  fact 
tends  to  keep  a great  many  people  loyal  to  an  eco- 
nomic and  political  order  which  offers  them  a 
chance,  however  remote,  to  live  by  the  earnings  of 
other  people,  and  to  make  them  inhospitable  to  an 


278  Concerning  Women 

idea  of  freedom  which  threatens  that  chance. 
There  is  another  factor,  too,  which  must  be  taken 
into  account,  as  explaining  the  hostility  of  our  prole- 
tariat towards  an  experiment  in  proletarian  govern- 
ment which  might  be  expected  to  gain  their  tolerance 
if  not  their  sympathetic  interest:  that  factor  is  the 
tendency  of  human  beings  to  prefer  an  immediate 
temporary  well-being  to  an  ultimate  permanent  well- 
being conditioned  on  the  acceptance  of  immediate 
hardship  or  uncertainty.  (“Apres  nous  le  deluge ” 
is  a sentiment  by  no  means  peculiar  to  dissolute  and 
irresponsible  monarchs.  Humankind  has  always 
shown  a perfect  willingness  to  let  posterity  pay  its 
bills  and  atone  for  its  misdeeds.  Labour  at  present 
is  comparatively  well  off  in  this  country;  and  it  is 
significant  that  just  those  sections  of  it  that  are 
most  advantageously  situated  are  strongest  in  their 
opposition  to  the  bolshevist  experiment,  namely : the 
unions  in  the  American  Federation  of  Labour. 
One  can  not  unreservedly  condemn  their  attitude; 
there  is  much  to  be  said  for  it.  In  a society  orga- 
nized as  ours  is,  the  mere  loss  of  a job  is,  as  I have 
remarked  elsewhere,  terrible  enough  to  keep  one’s 
thoughts  from  wandering  on  burning  ground.  The 
labourer  stands  to  lose  through  any  radical  economic 


Signs  of  Promise  279 

readjustment  quite  as  much  as  the  monopolist, 
that  is,  his  all.  If  his  all  be  sufficient  to  keep  him 
from  want,  he  will  naturally  regard  with  apprehen- 
sion any  proposal  to  take  it  away  for  the  moment, 
even  for  the  sake  of  his  own  possible  future  advan- 
tage. The  poor  man,  especially  if  he  have  a family, 
is  likely  to  feel  that  a present  sufficiency  is  worth 
much  more  than  a future  surplus.  It  is  only  when 
people  have  literally  nothing  to  lose  but  their  chains 
that  they  can  face  without  fear  the  prospect  of  revo- 
lutionary change.  If  the  existing  economic  order 
remains  in  force,  that  time  will  come  in  this  country 
as  it  came  in  pre-revolutionary  France,  and  some- 
thing over  a century  later  in  pre-revolutionary  Rus- 
sia; and  when  it  does,  there  will  be  plenty  of  active 
interest  in  freedom,  and  of  underground  movements 
to  bring  it  about  by  revolutionary  methods.  But  at 
present  the  “dissidence  of  Dissent  and  the  protes- 
tantism  of  the  Protestant  religion,”  the  Anti-Saloon 
League,  the  one-hundred-per-centers,  the  Ku  Klux 
Klan,  and  the  Republican  party,  are  in  unapproach- 
able ascendancy. 

This  does  not  greatly  matter.  Force  and  pro- 
scription are  in  the  long  run  invariably  ineffectual 
against  an  idea.  The  idea  released  by  the  Ameri- 


280  Concerning  Women 

can  and  French  revolutions — the  idea  of  the  right  of 
individual  self-expression  in  politics — prevailed 
over  the  combined  forces  of  European  feudalism; 
and  the  idea  released  by  the  Russian  Revolution  will 
prevail  over  the  combined  forces  of  European  and 
American  imperialism.  For  ideas  can  be  fought 
neither  with  armies  nor  with  persecutions;  nor  can 
attention  be  for  ever  diverted  from  them.  The  only 
thing  that  has  effective  force  against  an  idea  is  a 
better  one.  Whether  or  not  the  Soviet  Government 
succeeds  in  getting  beyond  dictatorship  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  economic  justice  in  Russia  is  not  really 
important.  If  it  should  fail,  its  failure  will  not 
halt  the  progress  of  the  idea  that  human  freedom 
is  fundamentally  a matter  of  economics.  Not  even 
that  acceptance  in  principle  and  denial  in  practice 
which  is  the  chief  characteristic  of  Liberal  policy, 
can  permanently  defeat  it.  Sooner  or  later  it  will 
penetrate  into  human  consciousness;  it  will  become 
part  of  that  consciousness;  and  it  will  prevail. 
Whether  or  not  it  will  prevail  during  this  era  of  the 
world’s  history  is  another  question,  whose  answer 
will  depend  upon  the  readiness  of  mankind  to  as- 
similate and  be  actuated  by  it.  If  it  is  not  assimi- 
lated in  time  to  prevent  the  ruin  of  European  civili- 


Signs  of  Promise  281 

zation,  then  its  ultimate  victory  will  take  place  in  a 
future  era,  when  European  civilization  has  followed 
the  way  of  other  civilizations  to  oblivion. 

The  process  of  assimilation  is  even  now  at  work ; 
with  what  effectiveness  one  may  deduce  from  the 
strength  and  determination  of  the  forces  arrayed 
against  it.  It  was  no  love  for  the  Czar  and  the 
Russian  nobility  that  caused  the  Allied  Governments 
to  spend  millions  of  dollars  in  support  of  Kolchak, 
Denikin,  and  Wrangel,  just  as  it  was  no  love  for 
Louis  XVI  and  the  French  nobility  that  sent  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick  into  France  at  the  head  of  the 
Allies’  army.  It  was  fear  of  the  idea  which  ani- 
mates the  Bolshevist  Government.  It  was  not  be- 
cause the  Allied  Governments  hated  Germany  less 
but  because  they  hated  the  Bolsheviki  more  that 
they  failed  to  assent  to  the  Soviet  Government’s  pro- 
posal to  surrender  Petrograd  and  Moscow,  establish 
a front  in  the  Ural  mountains,  and  continue  the  war 
against  Germany.  It  was  not  their  belief  in  self- 
determination,  but  their  desire  to  interpose  a buffer 
State  between  the  embattled  proletariat  of  Russia 
and  the  embattled  imperialists  of  Western  Europe, 
that  caused  them  to  erect  Poland  into  an  independ- 
ent State.  Nor  has  anything  but  the  most  pressing 


282  Concerning  Women 

economic  necessity  moved  any  one  of  the  Western 
Governments  to  treat  with  the  cynical  realists  of 
Moscow,  who  have  repeatedly  embarrassed  Allied 
politicians  by  their  persistent  abstinence  from  the 
hypocritical  cant  of  the  diplomat  who  has  predatory 
designs  to  justify.  Nor  was  it  any  sudden  access 
of  friendliness  for  Germany,  or  any  noble  superior- 
ity to  sectional  jealousies  and  nationalist  ambitions, 
that  moved  these  same  Governments  to  sign  the 
agreement  of  Locarno;  it  was,  rather,  a desire  to 
make  common  cause  against  a Government  whose 
avowed  purpose  is  to  destroy  the  privileged  interests 
by  and  for  which  they  themselves  exist.  Need  any- 
one suppose  that  they  would  do  all  these  things  if 
they  believed  that  the  Russian  idea  could  be  local- 
ized? Not  even  the  desire  of  their  privilegees  to  ex- 
ploit the  natural  wealth  of  Russia  could  have 
brought  about  a Locarno  agreement.  It  was  their 
sense  of  a common  danger  that  overcame  their  mu- 
tual jealousies  and  distrust;  the  danger  that  the  pro- 
letarians of  their  own  countries  may,  as  their  miser- 
ies increase,  be  moved  to  emulate  the  proletarians  of 
Russia,  that  a sense  of  class-solidarity  may  overcome 
traditional  and  national  antipathies,  and  move  them 
to  unite  for  the  purpose  of  casting  off  their  chains. 


Signs  of  Promise  283 

There  are  tendencies  in  post-war  Europe  and 
America  which  must  be  disturbing  to  the  politician 
who  knows  how  to  interpret  them,  if  there  be  such  a 
politician;  tendencies  far  more  significant  of  future 
developments  than  the  mere  existence  of  organized 
revolutionary  minorities  or  the  activities  of  single 
communists  or  anarchists,  and  much  more  difficult 
to  cope  with.  Chief  among  these  is  a growing  dis- 
respect for  government;  the  progress  of  a healthy 
cynicism  concerning  its  nature  and  purpose,  and  a 
promising  disregard  of  those  sumptuary  laws  which 
do  not  meet  with  the  convictions  or  desires  of  citi- 
zens. This  tendency  is  by  no  means  confined  to  any 
disaffected  group  or  class.  The  citizen  who  is  most 
patriotic,  and  most  wholeheartedly  with  his  Govern- 
ment in  its  attempts  to  coerce  other  people,  may  not 
scruple  to  evade  its  attempts  to  coerce  himself. 
There  is  no  articulate  sentiment  in  this  country,  for 
example,  against  the  income-tax  law;  yet  there  are 
few  citizens  who  will  not  evade  its  incidence  if  pos- 
sible, and  feel  themselves  quite  justified  in  doing  so. 
Or  again,  who  has  not  heard  people  comfortably 
provided  with  contraband  liquor  remark  that  they 
believe  prohibition  to  be  an  excellent  thing  for  the 
country  in  general?  People  may  support  the  pol- 


284  Concerning  Women 

icies  of  a Government  who  entertain  no  illusions 
whatever  about  the  nature  of  its  personnel — or  about 
the  policies  themselves  for  that  matter — but  who  sup- 
port them  as  a matter  of  self-interest  or  because  they 
see  nothing  better  to  do.  But  all  this  does  not  augur 
especially  well  for  the  hold  of  government  upon  the 
loyalty  or  imagination  of  the  governed.  It  is  a 
truism  that  the  Government  which  tries  to  enforce 
one  law  to  which  its  citizens  do  not  subscribe,  thereby 
engenders  disrespect  for  all  law,  and  thus  weakens 
its  authority.  Again,  the  citizen  who  supports  his 
Government  through  self-interest  or  inertia  may  op- 
pose it  through  self-interest  or  because  his  inertia 
has  been  overcome.  If  he  does  not  support  it 
through  respect,  its  hold  upon  him  is  tenuous  and 
uncertain. 

As  for  the  growing  numbers  of  the  disaffected, 
they  show  their  loss  of  faith  in  so-called  representa- 
tive government,  and  their  sense  of  helplessness,  by 
a practice  of  non-co-operation  which  is  none  the  less 
real  because  it  is  spontaneous  and  unorganized. 
The  number  of  qualified  voters  who  abstain  from  us- 
ing the  ballot  grows  with  every  election;  and  this  is 
not  surprising,  since  every  voter  of  any  intelligence 
knows  precisely  what  interests  control  government, 


Signs  of  Promise  285 

and  precisely  what  measure  of  self-determination 
his  apparent  choice  between  rival  candidates  in- 
volves. Even  the  old  faith  in  Liberalism,  or  the 
belief  that  the  masses  may  get  some  voice  in  govern- 
ment through  “putting  good  men  in  office,”  is  not 
what  it  once  was.  Liberalism  displayed  its  true 
colours  during  the  war,  and  since  the  war  it  has  not 
been  able  to  fool  a great  many  of  the  people  even 
part  of  the  time.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  every  war- 
Government  of  1914  was  a Liberal  Government  ex- 
cept Russia’s.  Mr.  Wilson  was  a Liberal  if  there 
ever  was  one;  and  Mr.  Wilson’s  Administration  led 
the  American  people  into  a costly  war  which  was 
of  practical  moment  to  only  an  infinitesimal  minor- 
ity of  our  population,  and  used  the  opportunity 
created  by  war-hysteria  to  perpetrate  the  most  high- 
handed outrages  against  dissenters  from  his  war- 
policy.  Mr.  Wilson  may  have  been  sincerely  in- 
sincere, as  one  clever  critic  put  it;  but  whether  he 
was  so  or  not,  he  gave  the  American  people  a 
thorough,  high-priced  lesson  in  the  essential  hypoc- 
risy of  Liberalism.  Mr.  Wilson,  and  his  fellow- 
Liberals  of  Europe,  showed  the  world  that  the  real 
interests  of  Liberalism  and  those  of  Toryism  are 
identical,  and  that  when  those  interests  are  endan- 


286  Concerning  Women 

gered  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  between  Liberal 
and  Tory  behaviour. 

It  has,  indeed,  become  abundantly  clear  since  the 
war  that  a realignment  of  forces  is  inevitable;  a re- 
alignment which  shall  represent  not  merely  two  fac- 
tions differing  slightly  in  regard  to  the  non-essentials 
of  government  but  one  in  the  fundamental  purpose 
of  furthering  economic  exploitation;  but  a realign- 
ment which  shall  represent  the  cleavage  which  exists 
already,  and  will  be  widened  as  time  goes  on,  be- 
tween those  who  wish  to  perpetuate  economic  ex- 
ploitation and  those  who  wish  it  abolished.  The 
remark  which  one  frequently  hears,  that  the  two 
great  parties  in  this  country  represent  the  same  in- 
terests, means  that  they  are  both  maintained  by,  and 
directly  represent,  the  interest  of  monopoly  which  is 
engaged  in  exploiting  industry.  Their  superficial 
differences,  even,  are  notoriously  insignificant,  and 
fundamentally  their  interests  and  their  source  of 
power  are  identical.  The  logical  cleavage,  there- 
fore, is  between  members  of  those  two  parties  with 
all  mere  Liberals  and  reformers,  on  the  one  side,  and 
advocates  of  economic  justice  on  the  other.  It  is 
really  too  late  for  compromise;  too  late  for  govern- 
ment to  do  everything  for  the  exploited  masses  ex- 


Signs  of  Promise  287 

cept  get  off  their  backs,  as  the  German  Imperial 
Government  did  so  admirably  before  the  war.  Gov- 
ernments have  become  too  corrupt  and  too  ruthless, 
and  the  interests  behind  them  too  greedy,  to  perceive 
the  wisdom  of  such  a course.  If  the  policy  of 
coercion  is  in  the  ascendancy,  if  the  executive  arm  of 
political  government  is  everywhere  usurping  the 
function  of  the  legislative  arm,  if  parliamentarism 
and  republicanism  seem  about  to  merge  into  dic- 
tatorship, it  is  because  the  ruling  classes  are  much 
more  awTare  of  the  coming  struggle  than  are  those 
classes  whose  interests  will  range  them  on  the  other 
side;  and  if  many  people  now  support  government 
whose  interests  are  against  it,  it  is  because  they  have 
not  yet  awakened  to  a realization  of  their  true  posi- 
tion. The  increasing  cynicism  of  the  governed  con- 
cerning the  nature  and  purposes  of  government 
really  marks  an  important  advance  toward  the  new 
alignment  of  forces.  It  is  not  a long  step  from  the 
realization  that  government  does  not  represent  the 
general  interest,  to  a discovery  of  the  direction  in 
which  that  interest  lies. 

Along  with  this  cynicism  go  other  signs  of  a 
changing  attitude.  There  is  a conspicuous  falling 
off  of  faith  in  what  might  be  called  the  unofficial 


288  Concerning  Women 

adjuncts  of  government,  namely:  the  press  and  the 
pulpit.  The  changing  attitude  towards  organized 
religion  was  recognized  and  defined  in  the  Pope’s 
recent  Encyclical  Letter  condemning  the  progress  of 
laicism  in  all  the  countries  of  the  Christian  world, 
and  the  accompanying  tendency  to  discuss  Christian- 
ity as  if  it  were  merely  one  of  the  historical  faiths, 
like  Mohammedanism  or  Buddhism,  instead  of  the 
only  true,  revealed  religion.  It  is  recognized  also 
in  the  attempts  to  which  I have  alluded  above,  by 
certain  Protestant  sects  in  this  country  to  secure  laws 
forbidding  the  teaching  of  the  theory  of  evolution. 
It  is  true  that  science  and  the  printing-press  have 
robbed  a secularized  church  of  its  main  source  of  in- 
fluence over  the  minds  of  men,  the  one  by  discover- 
ing and  proclaiming  the  natural  laws  behind  those 
phenomena  which  ignorance  attributed  to  benign 
or  evil  spirits;  and  the  other  by  facilitating  the  gen- 
eral dissemination  of  knowledge.  The  Church  can 
no  longer  effectively  appeal  to  fear.  For  a church 
which  very  early  became  a class-organization,  and 
one  of  the  large-scale  promoters  and  beneficiaries  of 
economic  exploitation,  this  is  a serious  thing.  Its 
promises  and  its  comminations  are  becoming  alike 
ineffectual  in  face  of  mankind’s  growing  concern 


Signs  of  Promise  289 

with  the  spiritual  effect  of  involuntary  poverty  and 
wretchedness  upon  the  human  spirit  in  this  present 
world.  The  modem  cynicism  towards  paternalism 
in  government  and  industry  finds  its  counterpart  in 
cynicism  concerning  organized  Christianity.  In  an 
age  which  questions  the  justice  of  mankind’s  arbi- 
trary division  into  classes,  such  an  Encyclical  as  that 
of  Pope  Leo  XIII  which  enjoined  masters  to  be 
lenient  and  the  subject  masses  to  be  patient  is  already 
an  anachronism;  and  the  injunction  put  by  the 
Church  of  England  upon  candidates  for  confirma- 
tion to  order  themselves  lowly  and  reverently  unto 
all  their  betters  is  more  likely  to  arouse  antagonism 
than  to  win  compliance.  The  churches  do  not 
understand  the  new  psychology  with  which  they 
have  to  deal.  They  are  offering  dogmatic  creeds  to 
an  age  which  is  suspicious  of  all  dogma;  they  are 
upholding  traditional  moral  criteria  in  an  age  when 
the  foundations  of  factitious  morality  are  being  gen- 
erally scrutinized  by  the  light  of  reason  and  knowl- 
edge; they  are  preaching  Salvationist  doctrine  in 
terms  which  no  longer  edify  or  recommend  them- 
selves to  serious  attention.  All  this  is  merely  to  say 
that  organized  religion,  like  political  government, 
remains  static  in  the  midst  of  flux;  and  like  political 


290  Concerning  Women 

government  it  faces  a spontaneous  and  widespread 
if  entirely  unorganized  popular  movement  of  non- 
cooperation. 

As  for  that  large  majority  of  prosperous 
newspaper-concerns  which  are  stigmatized  in  social- 
ist literature  as  the  “kept  press,”  they  have  been  so 
over-eager  in  the  partisanship  of  their  editorial  writ- 
ing and  in  the  colouring  of  their  news  or  its  manu- 
facture out  of  whole  cloth,  that  there  is  discernible  a 
decided  change  in  the  popular  attitude  towards  them. 
The  power  of  the  printed  word  is  still  great  out  of 
all  proportion  to  its  weight ; but  editorial  pronounce- 
ments, if  they  are  read  at  all,  are  by  no  means  swal- 
lowed as  the  undiluted  milk  of  the  word,  as  they  were 
in  the  day  when  Horace  Greeley  used  daily  in  the 
Tribune  to  dictate  opinion  to  a large  section  of  the 
American  public.  It  is  significant  that  since  the 
advertising  department  has  come  to  take  precedence 
over  the  editorial  department,  there  has  been  a de- 
cided falling-off  in  respect  for  journalism  and  a 
marked  decrease  in  the  number  of  honest  and  able 
people  who  take  up  journalistic  work.  This  was  to 
be  expected.  The  modern  newspaper  is  essentially 
an  advertising  medium,  and  its  editorial  writing  and 
presentation  of  news  must  conform  to  its  general 


Signs  of  Promise  291 

character.  Under  these  circumstances  men  of  in- 
tellectual ability  and  integrity  are  no  longer  attracted 
by  such  work,  as  they  are  no  longer,  for  an  analo- 
gous reason,  attracted  to  governmental  office  or  to  the 
pulpit.  The  consequent  deterioration  in  journalistic 
personnel  contributes  further  to  the  newspaper’s  loss 
of  prestige — again  as  in  the  case  of  the  personnel  of 
government  and  of  the  churches.  As  all  those  in- 
stitutions lose  the  power  to  command  respect  and  al- 
legiance, they  progressively  lose  power  to  attract  able 
and  honest  minds  to  their  service;  and  as  they  lose 
this  power  of  attraction,  their  power  to  command  re- 
spect progressively  dwindles;  and  thus  by  alternate 
reactions  they  tend  to  disintegration.  To  return  to 
the  press,  it  is  symptomatic  of  the  loss  of  popular 
faith  in  its  moral  and  intellectual  character  that  peo- 
ple buy  this  newspaper  or  that  so  largely  because  of 
special  features — local  news,  sporting  news,  this  per- 
son’s column  or  that  person’s  cartoons.  It  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  the  overwhelming  majority 
of  Americans  look  to  their  newspapers  not  for  in- 
formation but  for  entertainment  or  excitement;  a 
fact  which  is  amply  attested  by  the  amount  of  space 
devoted  to  special  features,  comic  strips  and  cheap 
stories,  and  above  all  by  the  extraordinary  success 


292  Concerning  Women 

of  a new  tabloid  type  of  newspaper  devoted  almost 
exclusively  to  pictures,  accompanied  by  the  most 
sensational  kind  of  backstairs  gossip.  In  the  par- 
lance of  the  street,  the  modern  newspaper  is  “giving 
’em  what  they  want”;  and  while  the  preference  is  a 
sad  reflection  on  public  taste,  its  gratification  is  an 
equally  sad  reflection  on  the  quality  and  standing 
of  American  journalism.  The  newspaper,  in  short, 
as  I have  said,  no  longer  informs  or  guides  opinion; 
it  purveys  amusement. 

The  same  deterioration,  with  concomitant  loss  of 
prestige,  that  is  proceeding  in  government,  the 
church  and  the  press,  is  evident  in  educational  in- 
stitutions. This  is  a natural  and  inevitable  develop- 
ment, since  education  is  so  largely  under  political 
control.  The  powers  which  control  government  are 
in  control  of  education;  and  those  powers  quite 
naturally  will  not  tolerate  any  teaching  which  even 
implies  a revaluation  of  the  existing  economic, 
political  or  social  organization.  This  intolerance 
is  effective  even  in  institutions  not  under  direct  con- 
trol by  the  State;  for  those  institutions  are  largely 
dependent  on  wealthy  benefactors,  and  wealth  is  al- 
most entirely  in  control  of  people  who  have  a direct 
interest  in  the  preservation  of  the  established  order. 


Signs  of  Promise  293 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  primary  purpose  of 
education,  which  is  to  develop  the  mind  and  help 
it  to  independent  progress  along  the  paths  of 
truth  and  reason,  is  rendered  impossible  of  fulfil- 
ment; and  our  schools  have  pretty  generally  sub- 
stituted for  this  purpose  another  and  lower  one 
which  is  calculated  neither  to  embarrass  nor  offend 
the  powers  on  which  they  depend.  This  is  the  vo- 
cational purpose.  Thus  they  have  ceased  to  be 
centres  of  culture,  and  become  centres  of  training 
whose  object  is  to  turn  out  graduates  who  shall  re- 
semble one  another  as  closely  as  possible  in  all  things 
save  in  special  vocational  training.  As  Professor 
Jerome  Davis  recently  expressed  it,  our  colleges  are 
turning  out  machine-made  minds.  The  deteriora- 
tion in  the  personnel  of  the  teaching  profession  is 
consequently  quite  as  marked  as  that  in  government, 
the  churches  and  the  press.  Independence  of  spirit 
is  not  tolerated  by  school-directors  and  boards  of 
regents.  Teaching,  moreover,  being  held  in  little 
respect  by  the  State,  to  whose  interests  it  is  obviously 
inimical  if  prosecuted  intelligently  and  seriously, 
is  so  poorly  paid  that  people  who  can  possibly  do 
better  elsewhere  are  naturally  unwilling  to  become 
teachers.  It  is  needless  to  dwell  upon  the  demoral- 


294  Concerning  Women 

izing  and  vulgarizing  effect  of  these  circumstances 
on  the  schools  themselves  and  those  who  attend  them. 
It  is  too  obvious  and  has  been  already  too  often  dis- 
cussed, to  require  consideration  here.  What  I do 
wish  to  note  is  the  fact  that  this  educational  system 
does  not  escape  criticism  and  distrust;  and  that 
the  most  interesting  and  promising  manifestation  of 
this  distrust  is  evident  not  among  outsiders  or 
alumni,  but  among  undergraduates.  Too  much 
may  not  be  expected  of  it,  but  the  “youth-move- 
ment” which  is  afoot  among  students  may  not  be  dis- 
regarded ; it  is  symptomatic  of  a critical  attitude  and 
a spirit  of  revolt  which  may  not  be  wholly  without 
effect. 

These  are  negative  signs  of  progress,  if  one  will, 
but  none  the  less  impressive  for  that.  They  indi- 
cate a growing  sense  of  discomfort  in  the  environ- 
ment provided  by  established  institutions,  and  a loss 
of  faith  in  those  institutions  as  they  deterioriate  un- 
der the  spread  of  their  own  corruption.  On  the  posi- 
tive side  one  may  cite  the  growing  power  of  eco- 
nomic organization,  and  its  tendency  to  displace 
political  organization.  The  appearance  in  the 
American  Congress  of  a group  known  as  the  “farm- 
bloc”  is  an  interesting  instance  of  this  tendency. 


Signs  of  Promise  295 

Here  is  a group  of  political  representatives  with 
whom  an  economic  interest  is  frankly  placed  ahead 
of  political  affiliation.  They  arc  primarily  neither 
Democrats  nor  Republicans,  neitiier  conservatives 
nor  progressives;  they  are  primarily  representa- 
tive of  a producing  group.  As  such,  they  stand  for 
a departure  from  the  theory  of  representative  politi- 
cal government,  which  assumes  that  representation 
shall  be  not  industrial  but  geographic.  According 
to  this  theory,  the  representatives  from  each  arbi- 
trarily fixed  geographical  unit  are  supposed  to  rep- 
resent the  interests  of  all  the  citizens  within  that 
unit.  This  evidently  leaves  out  of  account  not  only 
the  fact  that  economic  interests  are  primarily  in- 
dustrial or  occupational  and  only  secondarily  and 
fortuitously  sectional,  but  also  the  fact  that  the  eco- 
nomic interests  within  a given  area  may  be  mu- 
tually inimical.  In  practice,  of  course,  political 
representatives  have  really  represented  the  dominant 
economic  interest  within  their  allotted  territory,  the 
interest  which  has  exercised  the  strongest  political 
influence ; but  since  in  theory  they  must  represent  all 
interests,  they  have  not  been  able  to  represent  that 
dominant  interest  openly,  but  have  had  to  resort  to 
subterfuge  and  dishonesty.  Even  the  members  of 


296  Concerning  Women 

the  farm-bloc,  were  they  representing  districts  where 
agriculture  was  not  the  dominant  industry,  would 
no  doubt  be  less  open  in  their  espousal  of  its  interest. 
None  the  less  they  have  dared,  in  disregard  of 
party-discipline,  to  form  a bloc  which  stands 
squarely  for  the  interest  of  a producing  class ; and  in 
doing  so  they  have  taken  a step  towards  the  system 
of  industrial  representation  which  has  of  late  made 
great  strides  in  European  countries,  more  especially 
in  Russia  and  Germany.  Although  the  group 
which  has  taken  this  step  may  be  unimportant  polit- 
ically, save  when  a close  division  chances  to  throw 
the  balance  of  power  into  its  hands,  the  step  it  has 
taken  is  of  the  utmost  importance;  for  if  economic 
representation  should  proceed  until  it  eventually 
superseded  geographical  representation,  the  change 
would  not  only  involve  the  destruction  of  the  bi- 
partisan machine  which  controls  government  in  this 
country;  it  would  naturally  bring  about  an  open 
alignment  of  the  producing  interests  against  the  in- 
terests of  exploitation,  and  thus  make  clear  the  final 
and  fundamental  issue  of  which  I have  spoken — the 
question  whether  economic  exploitation  is  to  be  per- 
petuated or  abolished. 

A good  deal  of  non-political  organization  shows 


Signs  of  Promise  297 

the  same  trend.  The  growth  of  co-operation,  for 
example,  in  production,  marketing,  and  consump- 
tion, is  evidence  of  an  attempt  to  evade  through 
group-action  those  exactions  of  government’s  ben- 
eficiaries against  which  the  single  individual  is 
powerless  to  protect  himself.  The  growth  of  offen- 
sive and  defensive  organization  among  capitalists 
on  the  one  side  and  workers  on  the  other,  not  only 
implies  recognition  of  the  primary  importance  of 
economic  interests  and  the  value  of  co-operation 
among  groups  whose  economic  interests  are  iden- 
tical ; it  implies  also  an  acknowledgment  that  neither 
capital  nor  labour  receives  from  government  what 
it  will  accept  as  adequate  protection  of  its  interests 
— as,  of  course,  neither  can,  since  the  interest  that 
government  exists  to  protect — the  interest  of  mo- 
noply — is  directly  inimical  to  both.  Moreover,  as 
this  organization  becomes  international  in  scope  it 
constitutes  a negation  of  the  political  differences 
which  bolster  up  rival  national  organizations. 
That  it  has  not  yet  become  strong  enough  to  prevent 
nationalistic  wars,  is  true;  but  this  is  because  the 
fact  that  war  is  a clash,  not  of  rival  producing  in- 
terests, but  of  rival  exploiting  interests  has  not  yet 
become  sufficiently  clear  to  overcome  a specious  pa- 


298  Concerning  Women 

triotism  and  the  traditional  distrust  and  prejudice 
which  governments  have  assiduously  inculcated 
upon  the  governed.  The  producing  classes  are 
really  behind  the  exploiting  classes  in  discovering 
that  their  interests  are  pretty  much  the  same,  what- 
ever their  various  nationalities  may  be.  Govern- 
ments have  always  co-operated  when  any  rebellious 
move  by  the  governed  in  any  country  threatened  the 
established  economic  and  political  order;  as  they 
co-operated  in  the  Holy  Alliance  against  France,  or 
in  a similar  alliance  against  Russia,  and  as  they  are 
now  co-operating  in  the  League  of  Nations  against 
the  exploited  classes  in  all  countries.  When  the  ex- 
ploited classes  understand  their  own  position  as 
clearly  as  the  exploiting  classes  have  understood 
theirs,  organization  for  defense  and  offense  will  no 
longer  be  national  and  vertical  but  horizontal  and  in- 
ternational. The  real  issue  will  be  drawn  at  last. 
Hence  the  tendency  of  capital  and  labour  toward  in- 
ternational organization  along  the  lines  of  economic 
interest  is  an  extremely  hopeful  sign  that  the  produc- 
ing classes  are  beginning  to  realize  that  their  major 
interests  are  not  political  but  economic,  and  that  the 
quarrels  of  Governments  are  injurious  to  those  in- 
terests; that  they  are  beginning  to  outgrow  the  nar- 


Signs  of  Promise  299 

row  nationalism  which  has  facilitated  their  exploi- 
tation in  the  past,  and  made  it  possible  to  pit  them 
against  one  another  in  the  quarrels  of  rival  exploit- 
ing classes. 


11 

All  these  signs  of  disaffection  under  the  old  order 
of  things  and  the  gropings  towards  a new,  do  not 
imply,  of  course,  any  growth  of  the  spirit  of  free- 
dom, or  any  new  consciousness  of  its  nature.  They 
do  indicate,  however,  the  progress  of  a temper  which, 
when  it  shall  have  become  more  pervasive  and  more 
deeply  rooted,  will  be  hospitable  to  the  doctrine  of 
freedom.  Discontent  with  the  established  order 
must  necessarily  precede  any  serious  move  toward 
its  displacement  by  a new  order;  and  discontent, 
while  it  is  by  no  means  dominant  at  present,  is  wide- 
spread enough  to  cause  Governments  a good  deal  of 
anxiety.  The  very  tightening  of  the  grip  of  govern- 
ment which  is  evident  in  the  present  tendency  to  sup- 
press legislative  bodies,  and  in  ruthless  persecution 
of  economic  dissenters,  is,  as  I have  already  re- 
marked, a sure  indication  of  the  extent  and  strength 
of  the  dissenting  forces.  When  those  people  who 
now  endure  the  harassment  of  governmental  waste 


300  Concerning  Women 

and  industrial  exploitation,  shall  perceive  that 
relief  is  to  be  gained  not  through  futile  political  re- 
forms aimed  at  amelioration  of  their  lot,  but  through 
a radical  readjustment  of  the  whole  economic  sys- 
tem— when,  in  other  words,  they  realize  “what  is 
to  be  done” — then  and  not  before,  will  come  the  real 
test  of  the  tenacity  of  the  old  order  and  the  strength 
of  the  forces  moving  towards  the  new.  On  its  side 
the  old  order  will  have  governmental  organization 
and  armed  forces,  and  the  enormous  influence  of  the 
superstitious  tendency  to  regard  as  right  that  which 
is  established,  supporting  the  interest  of  a com- 
pact, wealthy,  and  highly  organized  exploiting  class. 
The  new  order  will  have  on  its  side  the  newly  real- 
ized need  of  the  majority  without  whose  acquies- 
cence a highly  organized  minority  can  not  long 
maintain  itself  in  power.  The  issue  will  depend, 
obviously,  not  only  on  the  intelligence,  ability  and 
determination  of  the  majority’s  leaders,  but  upon 
their  clear  understanding  of  the  issue  involved.  If 
they  compromise,  as  the  leaders  of  the  French  Rev- 
olution compromised,  the  cause  of  justice  will  be 
lost,  and  the  most  that  will  be  gained  will  be  a shift- 
ing of  privilege.  The  Western  world  is  faced  at 
present  with  the  alternative  of  establishing  an  en- 


Signs  of  Promise  301 

during  civilization  on  the  sure  foundation  of  eco- 
nomic justice,  or  of  sinking  back  into  barbarism 
through  a long  series  of  civil  and  international 
struggles  for  possession  of  the  power  to  exploit.  If 
it  follow  the  latter  course,  its  civilization  will  go  the 
way  of  the  civilization  of  Egypt,  Greece,  and  Rome ; 
and  its  vitality,  like  theirs,  will  so  decrease  under  the 
dual  drain  of  exploitation  and  war  that  it  will 
eventually  fall,  as  they  fell,  an  easy  prey  to  some 
strong  external  force. 

The  task  before  those  who  wish  to  avert  this  fate, 
whose  passionate  desire  is  to  bring  about  an  endur- 
ing civilization  based  on  the  solid  foundation  of  eco- 
nomic justice,  is  the  task  of  educating  themselves 
in  the  nature  of  freedom,  of  learning  to  face  freedom 
without  fear,  and  of  communicating  to  others  their 
understanding  and  their  courage.  The  women  of 
today,  especially  in  this  country,  are  in  a peculiarly 
good  position  to  undertake  this  task  They  enjoy 
unprecedented  advantages  in  the  way  of  social  and 
intellectual  autonomy,  and  of  educational  oppor- 
tunity. They  have  emerged  successful  from  a long 
struggle  for  political  equality  with  men,  and  they 
are  still  engaged  in  an  organized  effort  to  secure 
legal  equality.  Thus  they  have  their  hand  in,  as  it 


302  Concerning  Women 

were,  with  the  work  of  removing  the  artificial  dis- 
abilities which  organized  society  imposes  on  a subject 
class  in  order  to  keep  it  subject;  and  this  work 
should  have  engendered  in  those  who  have  been  ac- 
tive in  it  a healthy  resentment  of  social  injustice 
and  a sense  of  the  value  of  freedom  to  the  human 
spirit.  They  will  still  have,  moreover,  even  after 
legal  equality  is  won,  a considerable  number  of  dis- 
criminations to  combat,  which  should  operate 
against  the  temptation  to  regard  their  fight  as  won, 
and  to  relax  the  vigilance  which  is  always  neces- 
sary to  preserve  individual  rights  against  encroach- 
ment by  organized  society.  The  organizations 
through  which  they  have  worked  remain  intact;  it 
is  for  them  to  determine  whether  those  organiza- 
tions shall  continue  as  mere  agencies  for  political 
lobbying  or  whether  they  will  carry  on  the  demand 
for  freedom  to  its  logical  end. 

The  fact  that  women  are  in  a good  position  to 
inquire  into  the  nature  of  freedom  offers,  of  course, 
no  earnest  that  they  will  do  so.  In  spite  of  the 
reasonableness  of  such  a course,  they  may  content 
themselves  with  trying  to  effect  the  ultimate  equality 
of  the  sexes  through  political  measures  which  in 
their  nature  can  never  effect  it — provided,  that  is, 


Signs  of  Promise  303 

that  events  do  not  move  too  fast  for  even  a serious 
trial  of  such  inept  methods.  A good  deal  of  mirth 
has  already  been  aroused  in  certain  quarters  by 
trivial  and  futile  reform-measures  which  women 
politicians  have  sponsored.  If  this  sort  of  thing 
shall  prove  to  be  the  sum-total  of  women’s  contribu- 
tion to  social  problems,  it  will  merely  prove  that 
they  are  quite  as  incapable  of  an  intelligent  under- 
standing of  those  problems  as  men  have  hitherto 
shown  themselves  to  be.  If  women  are  now  in  a 
good  position  to  school  themselves  in  the  tradition 
of  economic  freedom,  the  men  of  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica have  been  in  an  equally  good  position  to  do  so 
since  the  political  revolutions  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, and  as  yet  they  have  given  no  very  encourag- 
ing signs  of  progress.  However  much  one  may 
hope  that  women  will  make  a better  showing,  it 
would  be  unfair  to  expect  it  of  them;  for  they  are 
but  now  emerging  from  the  mental  and  spiritual 
condition  induced  by  centuries  of  subjection.  If, 
therefore,  they  fail  to  grasp  their  opportunity  to 
contribute  to  the  process  of  education  which  must 
precede  the  establishment  of  economic  justice;  if 
they  are  content  to  fix  their  minds  upon  this  or 
that  special  aspect  of  social  freedom  or  of  political 


304  Concerning  Women 

freedom,  instead  of  looking  steadily  towards  eco- 
nomic freedom — economic  freedom  for  men  and 
women  alike — the  judicious  critic  may  lament  their 
failure  or  disparage  their  tactics,  but  he  can  hardly 
attribute  either  to  any  stupidity  or  incapacity  pecu- 
liar to  their  sex,  since  it  is  through  the  same  failure 
and  the  same  tactics  that  men  have  brought  civiliza- 
tion to  the  critical  state  in  which  it  is  at  present. 

The  great  point,  however,  is  that  if  they  fail  they 
are  sure  to  pay  for  their  failure  a higher  price  than 
men  will  pay.  As  they  have  more  to  gain  from  free- 
dom than  men,  so  they  have  more  to  lose  than  men 
if  the  Western  world  shall  fail  to  establish  its  civil- 
ization on  the  firm  basis  of  economic  justice.  In 
the  relapse  into  barbarism  which  must  attend  the 
ultimate  breakdown  of  economic  and  social  life 
under  the  monopolistic  system,  physical  force  will 
be  even  more  strongly  ascendant  than  it  is  at  present ; 
and  when  physical  force  dominates,  the  ideals  of 
justice  and  liberty  are,  as  I have  already  remarked, 
without  effective  influence — the  only  right  is 
might.  The  well-being  of  women  depends  in  very 
great  measure  on  the  prevalence  of  those  ideals ; for 
when  force  is  dominant,  woman’s  physical  dis- 
advantage as  the  child-bearing  sex  places  her  in  a 


Signs  of  Promise  305 

position  to  be  more  readily  subjected  and  exploited 
than  man.  Because  of  this  disadvantage  she  was 
the  first  victim  of  exploitation;  because  of  it,  she 
will  be  the  last  to  escape;  and  because  of  it  she  will 
be  the  greater  sufferer  from  exploitation  so  long  as 
exploitation  shall  be  the  basis  of  the  economic  and 
social  order.  There  is  potential  tragedy  in  the  fact 
that  the  Western  world  has  become  civilized  enough 
to  perceive  the  injustice  involved  in  women’s  sub- 
jection only  when  the  economic  order  which  deter- 
mines its  social  life  has  become  so  corrupt  that  it 
threatens  the  destruction  of  civilization,  with  all 
such  gains  in  humanity  as  civilization  has  yielded. 
Women  have  equality  almost  within  their  grasp; 
they  may  lose  it  if  this  civilization  shall  follow 
the  path  of  its  predecessors  to  ruin  and  oblivion. 
There  is  one  way  to  avert  this  tragedy,  and  one 
only — the  way  of  economic  justice.  If  the  women 
who  have  been  active  in  the  struggle  to  emancipate 
their  sex  shall  enlarge  their  conception  of  freedom, 
and  with  it  the  scope  of  their  demand,  they  can  help 
mightily  to  preserve  civilization  through  the  estab- 
lishment of  justice.  If  they  could  win  their  sex 
away  from  the  exploded  formulas  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  bring  them  to  understand  that  political 


306  Concerning  Women 

and  social  freedom  without  economic  freedom  are 
utterly  illusory,  that  true  freedom  proceeds  from 
economic  justice,  and  that  justice  and  freedom  offer 
the  only  hope  for  the  salvaging  of  this  civilization, 
they  would  have  won  half  of  humanity,  and  that 
would  be  a contribution  of  no  small  value.  One 
thing  is  certain : the  question  of  freedom  for  women 
can  not  proceed  much  farther  as  an  independent 
issue.  It  has  reached  the  point  where  it  must  nec- 
essarily merge  in  the  greater  question  of  human  free- 
dom. Upon  the  fate  of  the  greater  cause,  that  of 
the  lesser  will  depend.  It  is  for  feminists  to  choose 
whether  they  will  merge  the  feminist  in  the  human- 
ist, or  whether  they  will  play  at  political  and  social 
make-believe  while  the  issue  is  being  decided,  and 
either  suffer  in  the  event  the  consequences  of  a fail- 
ure which  they  shall  have  made  no  effort  to  avert, 
or  enjoy  the  benefits  of  a success  which  they  shall 
have  done  nothing  to  attain. 


) 


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L.  B.  Cat.  No.  1 137 


